The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 14
Gardner Dozois (editor)
684 pages
published in 2001

This is the 2001 version of Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction series, which he has been doing since 1983 (the UK version of it started in 1987, hence "best SF 14", not 18) and not badly either. For a time his series was the only yearly sf anthology available, but in the meantime two other series have started up. Personally, I prefer Dozois' series to his competitors (see also my review of David Hartwells Year's Best SF 5 and Year's Best SF 7) not only because it's the biggest of the lot, but also because his tastes in science fiction and mine have considerable overlap. Furthermore, Gardner Dozois always has an extensive year in review section which is almost worth buying the book for. But then I like reading about science fiction almost as much as reading science fiction.

Nevertheless, an anthology stands or falls with the stories it collects, no matter its other features. Fortunately, Gardner Dozois hasn't let me down: judging from the stories in this volume, 2000 was a good year for short sf stories. Note btw that Dozois specifically sets out to find the best science fiction stories, not fantasy or horror stories. That said, there are several stories in there which could just as well have been classified as fantasy or horror, or even been published as straight mainstream stories.

I won't go into the stories in too much detail, instead just list them below, with comments.

• The Juniper Tree [Society of Cousins] John Kessel nv Science Fiction Age Jan, 2000
  A psychological study of a father who has moved to a lunar colony ruled by women, where the bond between fathers and their children is slight and his relationship with his daughter is a bit odd..
• Antibodies Charles Stross ss Interzone Jul, 2000
  Damn, the man can write. There are certain things Man should not know and there are a few people, inoculated against those things frantically trying to safe us and failing.
• The Birthday of the World Ursula K. Le Guin nv F&SF Jun, 2000
  This story of an Aztec or Mayan like society being put in turmoil due to alien invaders is okay, but not much of a sf story.
• Savior Nancy Kress na Asimov’s Jun, 2000
  See? Nancy Kress can write, just not novels. An alien craft lands on earth, to do ...nothing? While the probe waits for what's coming, history moves on in a series of vignettes revolving around the ship.
• Reef Paul J. McAuley nv Skylife, ed. Gregory Benford & George Zebrowski, Harcourt, 2000
  A nice hard sf story about the discovery of a very rich biosphere on one of the Oort cloud comets. Part of a loose series.
• Going After Bobo Susan Palwick nv Asimov’s May, 2000
  Another story that could just as well been written as contemporary fiction instead of sf. Not bad though.
• Crux [Crux] Albert E. Cowdrey na F&SF Mar, 2000
  A well worked out time travel story, with a conclusion that'll only surprise novice readers of science fiction. The pleasure lies in the characters and world Cowdrey created, rather than in the plot.
• The Cure for Everything Severna Park ss Sci Fiction website Jun 22, 2000
  Worst story in the book. Pointless, boring and again only marginal science fictional.
• The Suspect Genome [Greg Mandel] Peter F. Hamilton na Interzone Jun, 2000
  A nicely done detective story in a well worked out future England. The same setting and main character have also bere used in a series of novels by Hamilton. This is the first work of his I really liked.
• The Raggle Taggle Gypsy-O Michael Swanwick ss Tales of Old Earth, Frog, Ltd., 2000
  This is one of these stories you could just as well call fantasy. I need to read more of Michael Swanwick.
• Radiant Green Star Lucius Shepard na Asimov's Aug, 2000
  Sorry, but the sf aspects are so thin it could just as well have been told without it. More of a magic realism story than a sf story; certainly not a bad story though.
• Great Wall of Mars Alastair Reynolds nv Spectrum SF #1, 2000
  Good, but not spectacular story about a conflict between humans and not quite humans on Mars.
• Milo and Sylvie Eliot Fintushel nv Asimov’s Mar, 2000
  This took me some trouble to read and is another story that could be called fantasy.
• Snowball in Hell Brian Stableford nv Analog Dec, 2000
  What happens when creating human equivalent people out of farmyard animals is not quite as impossible as it seems...
• On the Orion Line [Xeelee] Stephen Baxter nv Asimov's Oct/Nov, 2000
  An okay enough story, but not very gripping, like everything I've read by Baxter.
• Oracle Greg Egan na Asimov's Jul, 2000
  Now this is obnoxious. In an alternate universe, a thinly disguised Alan Turing and C. S. Lewis do rhetorical battle about Reason vs Belief. Egan is on the side of Reason, but pulls his usual job of fighting strawmen again, I dislike the idea of Turing as a martyr or Lewis as a mouthpiece for bling unreason.
• Obsidian Harvest Rick Cook & Ernest Hogan na Analog Apr, 2000
  A hard bolied detective story in a world where the Aztec empire survived the coming of Europeans to the Americas. Perhaps the best story in the book.
• Patient Zero Tananarive Due ss F&SF Aug, 2000
  A cleverly told story about the outbreak of a particularly virulent disease seen through the eyes of a little girl, the first surviving victim, or "patient zero".
• A Colder War Charles Stross nv Spectrum SF #3, 2000
  This was the most horrifying sf story I've read in along time. In Stross' version of the Cold War there are far more horrifying things then H-bombs. The feel of this is similar to the other Stross story in here, pessimistic but exhilirating.
• The Real World [Silurian Tales] Steven Utley ss Sci Fiction website Aug 30, 2000
  After a timetrip to the Silurean, even a Hollywood party feels real to a paedologist (soil scientist). Quitly effective.
• The Thing About Benny M. Shayne Bell ss Vanishing Acts, ed. Ellen Datlow, Tor, 2000
  Another quiet story, about a guy who makes his living by finding extinct plants in unlikely places (bank offices e.g.) in a near future where the extinction of plant species has gone catastrophic.
• The Great Goodbye Robert Charles Wilson vi Nature Sep 21, 2000
  One of the short-short stories Nature published in honour of the year 2000, this is more of a sketch than a story, as a posthuman says goodbye to his human relative.
• Tendeléo's Story [Chaga] Ian McDonald na PS Publishing, 2000
  The other candidate for best story in this collection. Tendeléo is a young African girl whose life in her homevillage is disrupted when a piece of Chage, alien biosphere, takes possesion off it. Very well done.