Welcome to Best SF – reviewing the very best SF short stories since 2000. Use the links below to browse recent reviews and visit the Review Index for over twenty five years’ worth of reviews, of SF published from 1949 to date. Or use the search option at the top of the page. I’m slowly working my way through Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8’ and Jonathan Strahan’s ‘New Adventures in Space Opera’
I’m selling lots of my SF books, with more to come. Browse my SF book collection that is on ebay
Latest updates :
1st May 2026. I spotted on Clarkesworld’s BlueSky feed that Tia Tashiro’s ‘The Temporary Murder of Thomas Monroe‘ from Clarkesworld Magazine #220 January 2025, won the 2026 Derringer Award for Best Novelette, so thought I’d read it, and I enjoyed it.
24th April 2026. Another story from an author new to me. Juliana Baggott’s ‘The Historiography of Loss’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8’ sees an adult adopted at six months commission a 3D holographic walking talking version of her now dead father, in an attempt to find out why he abandoned her at six months of age. She finds out….
22nd April 2026. A second story from an author new to me. Marie Vibbert’s ‘We Built This City’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8’ has a memorable setting – the protagonist is one member of a maintenance crew who clean and repair the outside of a floating habitat in the upper atmosphere of Venus. When a downsizing of the crew happens, things get increasingly difficult… And M. Bennardo’s ‘Forty-Eight Minutes at the Trainview Cafe’ from the same source is a computer simulation story which I feared might not have anything new to say, but in fact it does, and the ending is a doozy.
21st April 2026. A second story in a month! And it’s a great story – A.T. Greenblatt’s ‘If We Make It Through This Alive’ from Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8’ has a Death Race 2000/Mad Max vibe, but without the violence, in a near future in which the USA relies on trains and cars are things of the past and the road and highways are potholed ruins. Greenblatt must be some crazy mofo to come up with such an out there concept! It’s the third of Greenblatt’s stories I’ve read, and they’re all very good.
10th April 2026. Well, it’s been some four months since I last read any SF! However, I have been kept busy with a bit of model making of an sfnal nature, which started with a xmas present which I suggested to the wife, a model of the ‘Natural Selection’ spaceship from the ‘Three Body Problem’ novels/TV serieses. Truth be told I got on much better with the model than I did with either the novel or the TV series, both of which I baled out on. 
I did take up model making as a means of stopping doom-scrolling on the interwebs, you know, the orange faced tiny handed paedo who half the US population voted in as Leader of the Free World…. But in terms of short SF, I’ve just read, and enjoyed Isabel J. Kim’s ‘Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist.
11th December 2025. Ai Jiang’s ‘Give Me English’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8’ is from a very small press source, and tbh reads like it’s from such a source, rather than it being one of the best two dozen SF stories written in the whole wide world during the year.
10th December 2025. Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8’ opens with a light appetizer viz : Naomi Kritzer’s ‘The Dragon Project’. Second up is a darker story Grace Chan’s ‘Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu’, in which someone does go back to Zhenzhu when there is in fact a very good reason not to. And third up is S.L. Huang ‘The Ship Cat of the Suzaku Maru’ which is altogether lighter and could easily have been from a 1950s Year’s Best anthology. And I’ve picked up, for the first time in a year, Jonathan Strahan’s ‘New Adventures in Space Opera’ and really enjoyed Arkady Martine’s ‘All the Colors You Thought Were Kings’, perhaps not unsurprisingly as I read her two ‘Teixcalaan’ novels during covid lockdowns, and this has similar far future, tech, politics and characterisation which I enjoyed in them.
9th December 2025. I’ve just finished Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ – the final story being Suzanne Palmer’s ‘Bots of the Lost Ark’, which features a return of Bot 9. Both this and the previous Bot 9 stories were Hugo Award winners, and both I would classify as ‘cute’.
8th December 2025. Here I am again, after a two-month layoff doing ‘other stuff’ and reading ‘other stuff’. But, here’s a thing, Gentle Reader : 10 years ago I set up an early retirement project, viz. my small scale commercial brewery, but now as I reach ‘proper’ retirement age (as measured by HM Government) and will be in receipt shortly of a State Pension (huzzah!), I have brought my brewing venture to a close, am selling my kit (and going to buy a much smaller homebrew kit in it’s stead). This means that the amount of time I spend doing ‘other stuff’ will be greatly reduced, and who knows, maybe more reading of SF will happen. I’ve even been eyeing up taking out an international sub to Asimovs, and buying the print versions of Clarkesworld via Amazon (I still eschew the e reader). Anyhoo I digress, as I came here to mention that I had read and really enjoyed Aliette de Bodard’s ‘Mulberry and Owl’, the penultimate story in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’.
3rd October 2025. Coming towards the end of Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ is Grace Chan’s ‘He Leaps for the Stars, He Leaps for the Stars’ in which a media star has been living with the stress of achieving stardom and then maintaining stardom from a *very* early age. And Rich Larson’s ‘Complete Exhaustion of the Organism’ is one of the stronger stories in the volume. Just AdB and Suzanna Palmer stories left in the volume – a Larson/AdB/Palmer trio to finish the volume highly likely to end the volume on a high note.
2nd October 2025. Yup, me again. Next up in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ is Tade Thompson’s ‘Elegba’s Valley’ which is from an online collection looking at ‘financial futures’ which is a first for me.
7th August 2025. I’m back! In Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ the editor doesn’t do Alice Towey’s ‘The Water Beneath Our Feet’ relatively lightweight, near future, eco-focussed story any favours by placing it straight after another relatively lightweight, near future, eco-focussed story. And that’s me feeling that after a fourth month gap from reading that preceding story. I never did get on with SF collections on a specific theme mind you, as I feel that with SF you want to be taken somewhere new, so a volume on the same theme is somewhat antitheshenal to that principle (hey, I made up a word!)
28th June 2025. Lovely weather, wife had just joined me at 65 and she’s retired from work, so we’re spending most of our time gallivanting at the moment, not too much time for reading….
13th May 2025. Mark Clifton’s ‘What Now, Little Man?’ closes Judith Merril’s ‘The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’ with a bit of clunky pontificating in a story that doesn’t quite do the topic justice.
5th May 2025. Theodore Sturgeon’s ‘The Man Who Lost the Sea’ in Judith Merril’s ‘The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’ is a classy story – a young boy finds an injured man. Or does he? This strong story does no favours for the following story Lawrence Block’s ‘Make A Prison’ which is a slight piece with a single conceit which the author springs in the final sentence.
4th May 2025. Will Worthington’s ‘Plenitude’ in Judith Merril’s ‘The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’ doesn’t read like a story from the 1950s, and is quite intriguing.
2nd May 2025. I was looking forward to J.G. Ballard’s ‘The Sound Sweep’ in Judith Merril’s ‘The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’, as I’d really enjoyed his ‘Belladona’ in her Second Annual. But this one doesn’t quite have the inventiveness of that earlier story.
2nd April 2025. The next two stories in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ are a bit of a disappointment tbh. Ken Liu’s ‘Jaunt’ uses transcripts of broadcasts and extracts of documents in covering topics including covid, telepresence, VR, tech, global corporations, which didn’t do much for me. And Octavia Cade’s ‘The Streams Are Paved With Fish Traps’ is optimistic solarpunk, but there isn’t much story or depth to make the story rise above preachiness.
1st April 2025. Next up in Judith Merril’s ‘The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’ is Darrel T. Langart’s ‘What the Left Hand Was Doing’ which is very run of the mill 1950s style Cold War stuff, albeit with the author postulating the rise of China as a global force to match the other superpowers. And, speaking of powers, the protagonist’s mind over matters powers are quite the thing.
22nd February 2025. Two very good stories from big names in Judith Merril’s ‘The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’ in the shape of Fritz Leiber’s ‘Mariana’ and Carol Emshwiller’s ‘Day at the Beach’, especially the latter, which feels like it could have come out of a current issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
21st February 2025. Ray Naylor’s ‘A Rocket for Dimitrios’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ is a doozy of an alternate history story.
17th February 2025. Regina Kanyu Wang’s ‘The Tide of Moon City’ feels rather out of place in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ on several counts.
14th February 2025. Two standout stories in Judith Merril’s ‘The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’, surrounded by some seriously lightweight pieces. Those two stories being Daniel Keyes’ ‘Flowers for Algernon’ (a stone cold classic obvs) and Clifford D. Simak’s ‘A Death in the House’ (which deserves to be much better known).
9th February 2025. Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Shoreline at Sunset’ raises the quality of the writing in Judith Merril’s ‘The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’ by a couple of notches.
4th February 2025. Finally! The fourth story in Judith Merril’s ‘The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF, Cordwainer Smith’s ‘No, no, not Rogov!’ is actually an SF story, and one actually published in an SF magazine (unlike the opening three stories), and for good measure is written by am SF master no less. And there’s a beef with the next story in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ viz Cooper Shrivastava’s ‘Aptitude’ as the author’s opening line rather lets the cat out of the bag and spoils an opportunity to tease the reader as to what is happening (mind you, the online version of the story gives a frickin’ story summation at the top of the page).
3rd February 2025. Aww cmon Judith! The third story in Judith Merril’s The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’ Avram Davidson’s ‘No Fire Burns’ is yet another non-SF story in a contemporary setting, published in a non-SF magazine. And I finally got round to reading the next story in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ viz Shiv Ramdas’ ‘The Trolley Solution’ which has the advantage of being on a particularly apposite topic, but rather feels like an undergraduate Creative Writing story, rather than a Best SF of the Year story about an undergraduate Creative Writing course.
13th January 2025. The second story in Judith Merril’s The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’ is similar to the first, in being published originally in a non-SF magazine, and in this case using an sfnal device (alternate worlds) to create a gentle comedy about domestic bliss. Jack Finney’s ‘The Other Wife’ sees one lucky guy able to get the best of both worlds.
11th January 2025. Yup, I’m back. I thought as the 25th anniversary of the establishment of BestSF is hoving into view, I really should do some more reading. And to get myself in the swing of things, I’ve picked up a much smaller volume than Neil Clarke’s Volume 7, in the shape of Judith Merril’s The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF’, published 65 years ago, my very own natal year. I had hoped for some shorter stories to get me back in the groove, and indeed Damon Knight’s ‘The Handler’ is so small it’s not even an hors-d’ouevre, it’s an amouse bouche.
30th November 2024. Yup, I’m still here, but my evening reading time is being cut into by the NFL, and also by reading mainstream award-winning novels. Such is life. Anyhoo I have just spotted a new Unca Mike story on Clarkesworld Magazine (#218 November 2024 issue FWIW) and decided that would be a good way to spend 20minutes of my life. And I was not wrong. Michael Swanwick’s ‘Unquiet Graves’ is clever little story, set in a cemetery, 50 or years so hence, when a widower seeks out the grave of his wife, with plans afoot and technology on hand. And to tell you any more would spoil your enjoyment, because you are going to read it!
19th October 2024. A neat little story in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ in the shape of Idrapramit Das’ ‘A Necessary Being’ in which a giant mecha in post-pandemic Kolkata not only has a heart, but a soul.
2nd October 2024. When it appeared in a Year’s Best SF some years ago I found the light tone of Yoon Ha Lee’s ‘Extracurricular Activities’ not quite to my liking and didn’t finish the story. I persevered this time, and the same criticisms apply, but bravo to topping the gender and sex fluidity of the story off with a final scene where the hero gets the boy and lubrication is discussed.
29th September 2024. Really enjoyed An Owomoyela’s ‘The Equations of the Dead’ from Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’.
25th September 2024. Yup, I’m still here. Not watching as much NFL this year on the tv (off to the two games at Tottenham soon) but reading a lot of non-SF. But I’ve just bought Jonathan Strahan’s ‘New Adventures in Space Opera’ and have just re-read Tobias S. Buckell’s ‘Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance’ which was collected in a Year’s Best SF volume a few years back, and which was even better than I remembered.
15th August 2024. Bit of a summer break from reading SF, what with summer, the General Election, far right rioting, the Olympics, brewing, and other stuff getting in the way. Mind you I am still reading mainstream novels, so getting back into the groove of reading short stories is becoming an issue. In the past it was entirely the other way round! Two stories from Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ (Volume 8 is coming soon!), one which I struggled with, and one which I enjoyed. R.S.A. Garcia’s ‘Philia, Eros, Storge, Agape, Pragma’ confused me on account of me as I conflated it with a previous story with, believe it or not, a very similar title. Gregory Norman Bossert’s ‘Hanai’ is set in a near-future Hawaii with a xenoanthropologist who responds to a request for help from a hulking alien who wants to dance… [15th Aug 2024]
1st June 2024. Bo-Young Kim’s ‘I’m Waiting For You’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ is another very strong story from an author new to me. One of those stories you finish and you’ve glad you’ve read it (rather than finishing it and being glad you’ve finished it…)
24th May 2024. Shauna O’Meara’s ‘Without Lungs or Limbs to Stay’ is the pick of Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ so far.
10th May 2024. Hannu Rajaniemi’s ‘Vaccine Season’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ looks at how technology, especially vaccines, are going to have a major impact on humans and humanity, and what this will mean for those willing to take to opportunity provided. Neat story.
9th May 2024. Erin Barbeau’s ‘Ice Fishing on Europa’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’, is nicely told with good characterisation and setting, but the ending was a bit of a stretch for me. Lots of far future and offworld SF in the volume so far, but one quibble is that there’s been a run of short stories, and it feels like the volume is overdue a more substantial story.
8th May 2024. Busy, busy, busy! And, admittedly, still prioritising reading non-SF non-short fiction. Remodelling the garden, visiting my brothers back in the land of our fathers, brewing and delivering beer, getting back into vinyl, and lots of other stuff. Short SF wise, I’ve just read two more stories from Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’, which I need to press on with, as volume 8 is due later this year. Vandana Singh’s ‘A Different Sea’ is a story of searching for home, and which I enjoyed, which is no surprise as I do like Singh’s work. Meg Elison ‘The Pizza Boy’ was equally enjoyable, and similarly no surprise as so far I’ve liked every other story of Elison’s that I’ve read, albeit with the rider that that is only one story.
2nd April 2024. Well, here’s a thing. I read a current short SF story. It was Fiona Jones’ ‘Hello! Hello! Hello! from the March 2024 issues of Clarkesworld Magazine, and I wholeheartedly recommend you read it.
27th March 2024. Mary Anne Mohanraj’s ‘Among the Marithei’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ is an impactful story of humanity amongst the stars and amongst alien races, through a very tight focus.
26th March 2024. Anil Menon’s ‘Paley’s Watch’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ is a great bit of hard sf with matching characterisation. In film news, Oppenheimer last year gets the Oscar, but I’ve just seen ‘Poor Things’ which I thought was by far the better film, and my regret is I didn’t catch it on the big screen. Dune 2 I enjoyed, and it zipped through quickly (Oppenheimer got to be a bit of a struggle towards the end) but it was just too close to the book and didn’t have any surprises in store. But I hear Dennis Villeneuve is looking into filming ‘Rendezvous with Rama’ – just imagine the fucking foghorn noise Villeneuve will use when the lights come on in Rama!
6th March 2024. Yup, it’s me, just finished marking yet another year on Planet Earth. Karl Schroeder’s ‘The Price of Attention’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7’ is a nice, quick read, and I could see a novel or a tv show coming out of the setting and character. To think, the story was published in 2021 and would you have thought that in 2024 you would be looking back fondly at 2021 – vaccines getting on top of covid, the Orange Menace consigned to history (!), and no Russia/Ukraine, Hamas/Israel….
14th February 2024 – still here folks, been watching the NFL, Spectrum Next programming, going to the gym, and reading non-SF (working my way through the Whitbread/Costa Award winners, Susan Hill ‘The Bird of Night’, Shiava Naipul ‘The Chip Chip Gatherers’, and Iris Murdoch’s ‘The Sacred and Profane Love Machine’), and Jonathon Coe’s ‘Rotter’s Club’ trilogy. And I finally got round to reading Christopher Priest’s ‘The Inverted World’, which I loved, and pleased with the cover of the paperback I got off ebay which shows women walking away, getting progressively squatter, which only makes sense once you’ve read the book. Anyhoo back to Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7 and Robert Reed’s ‘Integral Nothings’ takes a look at humanity’s place in the galactic scheme of things (narrator : it *isn’t* a place at the top table!)
6th December 2023 – Jose Pablo Iriarte’s ‘Proof by Induction’ is a third neat little story to open Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7, but it reminded me of David Marusek’s ”The Wedding Album” alls the way back from 1999, and tbh going forward, the Marusek story will stick in my mind more than the Iriarte one.
30th November 2023 – Alice Towey’s ‘Dark Waters Still Flow’ in Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7, is slightly further future and offworld, and features a water treatment facility AI as the protagonist, but with contemporary issues of immigration and integration.
29th November 2023 – Ray Nayler’s ‘Muallim’ gets Neil Clarke’s ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7, off to a neat little start, although this old SF reader would have preferred a further future and offworld setting to get max sfnal juice out of it.
28th November 2023 – Theodore Sturgeon’s ‘The Comedian’s Children’ and John Steinbeck’s ‘The Short-Short Story of Mankind’ finish Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 4th Annual Volume’ to good effect. The former is a lengthy story, well written, with a couple of tricks up it’s sleeve. The former is just a few pages long, but is biting satire, and is sadly still relevant in 2023.
23rd November 2023 – Arthur Zirul’s ‘The Beautiful Things’ in Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 4th Annual Volume’ is another wry take on life after a nuclear war, with what’s left of humanity very much subservient to the new dominant species – the bear (think Planet of the Apes/Bears Discover Fire). Humans have one advantage over bears – they can create Beautiful Things. Except…
22nd November 2023 – a month since my last review! I have just finished Kate Atkinson’s ‘Behind The Scenes At The Museum’ – a great read, and what a first novel! On the SF front E.C. Tubb’s ‘Fresh Guy’ in Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 4th Annual Volume’ is a wry take on life after a nuclear war, with what’s left of humanity in deep underground bunkers covered by concrete, with the ghouls, vampires and werewolves above ground getting a little peckish.
23rd October 2023 – Brian W. Aldiss’ ‘Ten Story Jigsaw’ in Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 4th Annual Volume’ is an interesting early story from BWA set in a Sydney devasted by atomic bombardment.
23rd October 2023 – Avram Davidson’s ‘Or All the Seas with Oysters’ follows on from the previous story in Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 4th Annual Volume’ in terms of being lightweight and marginally SF.
20th October 2023 – Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 4th Annual Volume’ continues with Fritz Leiber’s ‘Space Time for Springers’, which features a kitty with pretensions of grandeur.
18th October 2023 – next up (after a bit of a gap which included 2 NFL games in London) Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 4th Annual Volume’ provides a story that stands up to the test of time, and gives us food for thought (sadly more than 60 years after this story, humanity, or rather, many humans on Earth are still a long way from being the kind of people we would want out there in space representing us) Theodore L. Thomas’ ‘Satellite Passage’ has touches of ‘For All Mankind’. And Richard McKenna’s ‘Casey Agonistes’ is a disturbing tale from a TB ward.
6th October 2023 – picking up The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 4th Annual Volume where I left off a couple of years ago, and Gerald Kersh’s ‘River of Riches’ is a bit of a headscratcher. It has minimal fantastical elements, and is just an average story, let alone anything like one of the best dozen SF&F stories of the year.
30th September 2023 – The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 3rd Annual Volume concludes with probably the strongest story in the volume in the shape of Algis Budrys’ ‘The Edge of the Sea’ a strong, character driven drama.
29th September 2023 – waylaid a little by reading these novel things (Sarah Waters and Kate Atkinson and Colin Dexter), but my return to SF&F and to The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 3rd Annual Volume takes me to a *very* strange short in the shape of Eugene Ionesco’s ‘Flying High’ which will stick long in the memory (and perhaps appear in my dreams) but which I will probably member as a strange anime or Hayao Miyazaki film.
9th September 2023 – oh happy days, the next two stories from ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 3rd Annual Volume’ are both 1) SF 2) VG. Avram Davidson’s ‘Never Let us Sleep’ is a grim read, focussing on humanity’s lack of humanity when dealing with other species. Zenna Henderson’s ‘Wilderness’ is from her ‘The People’ series and very much reads like a story from an issue of F&SF in the 2020s, rather than the 1950s.
6th September 2023 – two more stories from ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 3rd Annual Volume’. Henry Kuttner’s’ ‘Near Miss’ is another miss as far as the sfnal content of the volume is concerned, however Rog Phillips’ ‘Game Reserve’ rather gives the game away with the title, but the game in question on the reserve…. (they ain’t alien!)
5th September 2023 – gosh, ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 3rd Annual Volume’ weak start (see below) goes from bad to worse, with the next three stories. Isaac Asimov’s ‘Let’s Get Together’ is dialog heavy and action lite, George Byram’s ‘The Wonder Horse’ features a horse with an amazing ability – it’s much faster than other horses (and that’s all), and Theodore R. Cogswell’s ‘You Know Willie’ is a thoroughly unlikeable story these days (was it a likeable story in those days??), and it’s another horror story
1st September 2023 – Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy 3rd Annual Volume’ starts with two stories without a whole lot of SF. First up is no less than an early appearance from British Grandmaster Brian W. Aldiss’ ‘Let’s Be Frank’ and then George Langelaan’s ‘The Fly’, the horror story that spawned two films and doubtless many nightmares. I certainly recall seeing the first film when I was young and been horrified by the ending, with the fly trapped in the web pleading to be saved!
31st August 2023 – Final two stories in Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels : Ninth Series’, viz : Lloyd Biggle, Jr’s ‘The Tunesmith’ which has a musical theme, but in contrast with J.G. Ballard’s contemporaneous ‘Prima Belladona’, this feels somewhat dated, and Carol Emshwiller’s ‘Hunting Machine’ is my third favourite SF story with a hunting theme from the 1950s, behind J.G. Ballard’s ‘A Sound of Thunder’ and Arthur Porges ‘The Ruum’.
18th August 2023 – Algis J. Budry’s ‘Nightsound’ in Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels : Ninth Series’, is a bit disappointing tbh.
3rd August 2023 – I’ve just finished Aidan Tchaikovsky’s ‘Children of Memory’, having read the previous two novels in the trilogy in short order in 2023. What a read!! Back to earth with a story from Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels : Ninth Series’ in the shape of James McConnell’s ‘Nor Dust Corrupt’ which is set on a far future Earth, overpopulated and built over, but where the ultra wealthy seek to be buried.
17th July 2023. A short tail from Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels : Ninth Series’. in Eric Frank Russell’s ‘Into Your Tent I’ll Creep’, visiting Altarian’s embrace humanity, but there’s a greater risk to the visitors, of which only one of their number is aware. If he can’t persuade his companions of this risk, it gonna be rough, rough.
15th July 2023. Two contrasting stories in Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels : Ninth Series’. One by an author with just a half dozen stories in his career, one by an author who had dozens of stories under her belt by the mid 1950s. One I read only a few pages before baling out, one which I enjoyed thoroughly. One is John J. McGuire’s ‘The Queen’s Messenger’ and the other is Leigh Brackett’s ‘The Other People’.
8th July 2023. Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels : Ninth Series’ picks up some momentum after a slow start with two stories that stand up well to the test of time. Interestingly both have a lot in common to a couple of movies. Poul Anderson’s ‘Call me Joe’ has human to alien telepathic control, and Chad Oliver’s ‘Didn’t He Ramble’ postulates a Westworld-type scenario, with added Louis Armstrong and New Orleans jazz.
9th June 2023. The first three stories in what was to be Ted Dikty’s final take on the best SF short stories are rather underwhelming tbh. They are Michael Shaara’s a’2066: Election Day’, Kate Wilhelm’s ‘The Mile-Long Spaceship’, Tom Godwin’s ‘The Last Victory’.
8th June 2023. Reader, after eight weeks with the builders and decorators in, things are getting back to normal and I’m back in the home office again (new wallpaper, new flooring, new desk), and next week untold numbers of boxes and bookcases (and other furniture for other rooms) are to be returned. The final two stories in Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume’ made for a gentle and pleasant return to SF, having dallied with *another* genre (crime fiction) and *another* format (novels) in the shape of some Anne Cleves and Kate Atkinson books. The stories were Garson Kanin’s ‘The Damnedst Thing’ gets a very strange request about one gentleman’s funeral. Strange on account of the gentleman in question makes that request personally, but having already been delivered to the undertaker in a state of being dead. And Zenna Henderson’s ‘Anything Box’ is a heart-warming tale of a teacher who finds a girl who is evidently spending a lot of time day dreaming. But in fact…
4th May 2023. May the Fourth Be With You. The latest two stories from Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume’, Mack Reynolds’ ‘Compounded Interest’ features a time traveller using regular visits back in time to benefit financially from compound interest of centuries. Not only does he amass great wealth…. And J.G. Ballard’s ‘Prima Belladonna’ feels very much like a story from the New Wave of the 1960s that has travelled back in time to a 1950’s SF anthology. Wowzers.
25th April 2023. In Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume’, Robert Abernathy’s ‘Grandma’s Lie Soap’ relates, mostly through the method of telling rather than showing, how a toothpaste with a special ingredient changes the world…
23rd April 2023. Bit of a break from the short SF! I’ve been reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s ‘Children of Ruin’. I’ve been packing up most of two bedrooms, the office, and the dining room, and several hundred books, in advance of the builders and decorators coming in to do some insurance fixing and re-decorating. I’ve been watching ‘The Mandalorian’ (absolute rubbish). I’ve been watching ‘The Last of Us’ (very good, but not as good as playing the game, and at times it feels somewhat like you’re just watching the cinematic sections of the game). Rewatched True Detective s1 (brilliant). Finally watched True Detective s2 (disappointing, but then again, Rachel McAdams, and Colin Farrell) and both ‘Bruges’ and ‘The Banshee of Inisherin’ (great and brilliant). Easing back into the short SF with a short, light piece in Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume’. Roger Thorne’s ‘Take a Deep Breath’ which looks at the potential risks of advertising.
2nd March 2023. In Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume’. Robert Nathan’s ‘Digging the Weans’ a far-future archaeologist ponders the small number of finds from the northern continent which is now referred as the and of The Weans, aka The We or The US, and what this tells us of the society and the peoples that lived there.
1st March 2023. Two contrasting stories in Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume’. Damon Knight’s ‘Strange Station’ looks at some of the psychological and transactional issues between humans and aliens on an individual and species level, and is quite thought provoking and very much reads like a more recent story. Whilst Isaac Asimov’s ‘Each an Explorer’ feels very much of it’s time, and very much in the vein of many Asimov’s stories of the time : two humans, out of touch with humanity, come face to face with an issue and then in addressing the issue, chat a lot to explain the issue to the reader. That story was collected in his anthology ‘Buy Jupiter’ which I bought at the age of 16. Tomorrow I turn 63…
27th Feb 2023. Algis Budrys’ ‘Silent Brother’ in Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume’ is a thoughtful and somewhat different to the norm exploration of an alien species arriving on Earth.
25th Feb 2023. R. Bretnor’s ‘The Doorstop’ in Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume’ is a good complement to ‘The Far Look’ earlier in the volume in looking at the human response to the reality of just how big a universe it is in which we live, and just how small we are.
24th Feb 2023. E.L. Malpass’s ‘When Grandfather Flew To The Moon’ in Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume’ is a delightful little story, which left me wanting more.
23rd Feb 2023. Judith Merril’s ‘The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume’ is an altogether smaller version than the hefty Dikty volume I’ve just finished. A dinky little paperback whose typeface is small enough to challenge even my newest reading glasses. First up (after the two stories I read and reviewed a few years back) is Theodore L. Thomas’ ‘The Far Look’ which works well today, and indeed has some similarities to ‘The Martian’.
22nd Feb 2023. Well, the final story in Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1955’, Frank Herbert’s ‘Nightmare Blues’ was a tad overlong and not as good as I had been hoping for. It’s a near-future technology thriller, but it’s very much B-movie stuff. In more contemporary Year’s Best SF news, Good News is that Neil Clarke’s next volume is now available for pre-order on Amazon, Bad News is that after 2 volumes from Saga of Jonathan Strahan’s take on the Year’s Best, volume 3 ain’t evidently going to be happening, at least from Saga.
21st Feb 2023. The pre-penultimate and penultimate stories in Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1955’ are Robert Abernathy’s ‘Axolotl’ and Everett B. Cole’s ‘Exile’. The former is the author’s second story in the volume, and is a good one, albeit with a bit of frustration that the story title and the introduction tip the wink to the reader, thus spoiling an intriguing ending. The latter is a lengthy novelette, and TBH does seem a bit of a strange choice – surely there were better novelettes than this dring the year? Anyhoo, the final story is from one Frank Herbert, and I’m looking forward to that!
17th Feb 2023. Albert C. Friborg’s ‘Careless Love’ in Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1955’ sees Friborg having a lot of fun with AI (although it’s not called that in the story) and psychology, both human psychology and robotic AI, the US military and policos, and the psyche of those therein. The reader’s fun reading the story will be determined by the extent to which their funny-bone is the shame shape as Friborg’s.
14th Feb 2023. Three enjoyable stories from Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1955’. James Causey’s Felony sees an altogether unpleasant protagonist get to travel to a beautiful world. Raymond E. Banks’ The Littlest People, his second story in the anthology, has an employment agency delivering manual workers and wannabe housewives (!) to distant planets in shrunkified and suspended animation format. And Jerome Bixby’s One Way Street is a clever alternate earths yarn.
13th Feb 2023. Well, Superb Owl LVIII was a cracker. Looks my Bills are going to have a hell of time getting to The Big One in the years to come on account of the Future GOAT. Anyhoo, a second story by Walter M. Miller Jr. in Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1955’, with an equally emotional heft, in the shape of The Will, which related how a young boy, terminally ill, has a brainwave thanks to non other than TVs very own Captain Chronos.
8th February 2023. Two quite different stories in Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1955’. Winston K. Marks’ John’s Other Practice’ has things not looking up (down?) for gynaecologist John, who dreams up a way of earning money from women’s medical needs in an altogether different way. It’s a wry story. William Morrison’s ‘The Inner Worlds’ has an intriguing setup indeed, with humans arriving on a planet being a challenge for the dominant species on that planet – tiny, intelligent parasites living in the bodies of much larger animals.
6th February 2023. Robert Abernathy’s ‘Heirs Apparent’ in Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1955’ is somewhat less entertaining than the preceding stories. The post-nuclear war setup is promising, but the story slides into lengthy debate between two members of the opposing sides.
31st January 2023. A clutch of entertaining stories from Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1955′ – cheered me up after the Bills’ dismal end to the season. Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s ‘Memento Homo’ sees an elderly, terminally ill spacer reflect on his life in space. Andre Norton’s ‘Mousetrap’ starts and ends in a Martian bar, with a crusty old Martian prospector getting revenge on someone who spoiled something precious to him. Raymond E. Banks ‘Christmas Trombone’ is full of christmas sf cheer, as a guy whose one pleasure in life, tromboning, is taken from him due to Venusian water. Frank M. Robinson’s ‘One Thousand Miles Up’ posits an multi-national International Space Station, and puts it in the centre of Cold War tensions. Clifford D. Simak’s ‘How-2’ channels Asimov in it’s tongue in cheek look at the rights of robots.
20th January 2023. Compared to the slimmed-down UK edition of the previous year’s volume, Ted Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1955’ is an altogether more substantial volume. It starts with one very familiar to me SF story from that era, and two humorous, satirical observations which were new to me, viz : Tom Godwin’s ‘Cold Equations’, Chad Oliver’s ‘Of Course’, and Ward Moore’s ‘Dominions Beyond’.
19th January 2023. After a run of three strong stories in Bleiler and Dikty’s The Best Science Fiction Stories 1954, the volume closes with two stories in a much lighter view. Ruth M. Goldsmith’s ‘Yankee Exodus’ sees a good ol’ boy farmer benefit from a mutually beneficial relationship with a visiting alien. Mark Clifton and Alex Apostolides’ ‘What Thin Partitions’ didn’t really work for me. But it clearly did for others, including those who evidently commissioned some follow up stories about HR Director Ralph Kennedy, who by a happy co-incidence ends up with an anti-gravity device, but has problems replicating that co-incidence when trying to produce more devices.
16th January 2023. Three strong stories in Bleiler and Dikty’s The Best Science Fiction Stories 1954. William Morrison’s ‘The Model of a Judge’ is an interesting story based around the judging of a cake baking competition. Yes, really. The judge is an interesting character, who does have an eye for a tasty morsel. Richard Matheson’s ‘The Last Day’ is an approaching apocalypse story which stands up very well to the test of time. Ward Moore’s ‘Lot’ is a post-apocalypse civilisation breakdown story with a most unpleasant protagonist. But as the story is very much a retelling of the biblical Lot, that is to be expected!
6th January 2023. Happy New Year folks! A bit of a quiet period for short SF reading, as I was reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s ‘Children of Time’ which I enjoyed. I did spend some time watching and enjoying ‘Station Eleven’ on the tellybox over the past month. Reading wise, four stories from Bleiler and Dikty’s The Best Science Fiction Stories 1954 kept me entertained. Fritz Leiber’s ‘The Big Holiday’ was an interesting one, a gay counterpoint to the generally dark tone of SF stories in the post-war/Cold War period of the time. G. Gordon Dewey and Max Dancey’s ‘The Collectors’ propose a solution to the problem of just where all your money goes. Joseph Shallit’s ‘Wonder Child’ gets a bit Rosemary’s Baby on us. And Walter M. Miller, Jr’s ‘The Sower Does Not Reap’ doesn’t feel too far removed from a story you could read today.
8th Dec 2022. The UK edition of Bleiler and Dikty’s The Best Science Fiction Stories 1954 starts off with Jack Vance’s ‘DP! which is sadly still relevant some 70 years later.
7th December 2022. A bit of a break from short SF as I had another dalliance with longer form SF. However, I got only about a quarter of the way through Alastair Reynolds ‘Blue Remembered Earth’ before realise I didn’t have the patience to carry on further. (I found the clues to solve the mystery – coded message in a spacesuit glove on the moon, leading to a coded message in a painting on Phobos, leading to… somewhat irritating and whilst there was a huge amount to enjoy and admire on the technological side of things, I just wanted the story to progress rather more quickly than Reynolds!). Anyhoo, a story of only a few pages, in Rich Horton’s The Best of the Year 2008, which I didn’t read at the time, is Jack Skillingstead’s ‘Everyone Bleeds Through’ which was enjoyable whilst it lasted. And the two final stories from this volume which I didn’t read at the time were a bit lightweight, not close to Year’s Best standard IMHO, viz Mary Robinette Kowal’s ‘For Solo Cello, Op. 12’ in which a cellist who loses a hand finds one way, with a high price attached, to keep on playing (but fails to find out one key bit of information in advance of taking that option, and Will McIntosh’s ‘Perfect Violet’ looks at selling memories and the price that is paid (losing those memories in the process).
26th November 2022. Tim Pratt’s ‘Artifice and Intelligence’ in Rich Horton’s Science Fiction the Best of the Year 2008 Edition is a neat little story looking at AIs and ghosts in the machines.
25th November 2022. Bruce Sterling’s ‘A Plain Tale from Our Hills’ from Rich Horton’s Science Fiction the Best of the Year 2008 Edition is only a few pages long and is passing strange. None of your cyberpunky Sterling here! And the final story in Bleiler and Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories : 1953’, Eric Frank Russell’s ‘Fast Forward the Eventide’ is a thoughful story.
23rd November 2022. Here’s a thing : today I read two stories whilst travelling up to London on the train. Something I haven’t done for almost a decade, having previously done it whilst commuting to work for a couple of decades. The stories I read were the penultimate and the pre-penultimate in Bleiler and Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories : 1953’. John D. MacDonald’s ‘Game for Blondes’ starts like a crime noir story, then an sfnal element with the titular dames kicks in (they aren’t human!). Frank M. Robinson’s ‘The Girls from Earth’ posits an Earth where so many men have left to find their fortune on a multitude of far off planets, the men left behind have their pick from the much larger number of women, leaving the rest of the women to a future of spinsterhood and old biddydom.
21st Nov 2022. From Bleiler and Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories : 1953’, Eric Frank Russell’s ‘I Am Nothing’ looks at a cold-hearted warmonger who meets his match.
15th Nov 2022. Two more strong stories (well it *is* a Year’s Best) close out Neil Clarke’s The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 6, both by authors revisiting themes/settings in recent year’s anthologies. Aliette de Bodard’s ‘The Long Tail’ is another dive into a reality-distorted abandoned space ship. And Fran Wilde’s ‘Rhizome, by Starlight’ is Earth-based and has a horticultural bent, although very much in Weird Unexplained Shit Going On territory. Me, I’m just about recovered from the shock of my eldest son turning 33 ffs.
9th Nov 2022. Two strong stories from Neil Clarke’s The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 6. James S. A. Corey’s ‘Elsewhere’ and Andy Dudak’s ‘Salvage’, the latter particulary so, and especially impressive as he had a different story in Strahan’s take on the best sf of the year, which was one of my picks of that volume, as this one is of this volume.
8th November 2022. Two more stories from Bleiler and Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories : 1953’. Alfred Coppel’s ‘The Dreamer’ is a four pages in which an astronaut achieves his boyhood dream. But be careful what you wish for… And Fritz Leiber’s ‘The Moon Is Green’ is a harrowing, claustrophobic post-nuclear war story.
7th November 2022. Murray Leinster’s ‘The Middle of the Week after Next, from Bleiler and Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories : 1953’ is an amusing tale revolving around a grumpy New York cabbie and his missing passengers.
31st October 2022. A trio of good stories in Neil Clarke’s ‘Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 6 for this All Hallow’s Eve. Vajra Chandrasekera’s ‘The Translator, at Low Tide’ has almost a Ballardian feel to it. Sofia Samatar’s ‘Fairy Tales for Robots’ is clever stuff and a good read. And M. Rickert’s ‘This World is Made for Monsters’ is an altogether gentler work than some I’ve read by them. Only four more stories to go in this volume! The good news is that whilst this volume was delayed as were many titles, 2023 might see two volumes being published in order to get back into sync. Huzzah! In less good news, I’m already worrying about the stress of having to watch the Buffalo Bills in the Superbowl again – those four back to back losses were a hard watch back in the day!
27th October 2022. Second story in the reduced UK edition of Bleiler and Dikty’s ‘The Best Science Fiction Stories : 1953’ is Mark Clifton’s ‘Conqueror’, a simple tale of a young Guatemalan peasant body whose dreams of conquering the world are indeed fulfilled, although through a most unusual means.
25th October 2022. The latest two stories in Neil Clarke’s ‘Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 6 are both by Big Names, viz. Peter Watts’ ‘Test 4 Echo’ and Ken Liu’s ‘Uma’. One story lived up to my expectations, t’other didn’t. Which one? Drumroll, maestro, as you follow the links…