By Gardner R. Dozois
St. Martins Press
Hardcover and Paperback

For fans of science fiction, The Year's Best Science Fiction - Nineteenth Annual Collection, is a bag of treats. As Jim Hopper of the San Diego Union-Tribune has said, "At list price, it's still the best value for top-notch SF, by the page or by the pound."

Bear in mind, though, that when you buy in bulk, you are bound to get some gristle, fat and bone along with the red meat. Fortunately, (delicately mixing metaphors) the few bad apples do not spoil the rest of the barrel.

These stories cover the full spectrum of science fiction. They range from the comic to the sublime. They cover time periods from tens of millions of years ago to countless years in the future. They range from the Earth to planets orbiting distant stars. They even cross from one parallel universe to another with the greatest of ease. These thought-provoking stories stretch the imagination.

The Year's Best Science Fiction Excerpt In the end, the key to time travel was provided by Lawrence Welk. It happened in the vicinity of Peapack, New Jersey. One evening during February sweeps, all the television sets that still had antennas started emitting accordion music and grain black-and-white champagne bubbles. It lasted on a few minutes, but viewers of The world's Most Gruesome Accidents flooded the station with complaints. From The Real Thing, by Carolyn Ives Gilman ©2002 Gardner R. Dozois Published with permission from St. Martins Press

One selection, The Dog Said Bow, Wow, by Michael Swanwick (first appearing in Asimov's Science Fiction October/November, 2001 issue) won the 2002 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. The plot of this story is a straightforward adventure story, reminiscent of the 1971 Hugo winning novella Ill Met in Lankhmar, by Fritz Leiber.

Set in a distant future where dogs have been modified to gain sentience, speech and the ability to walk upright, one dog, Sir Plus and his sidekick Darger, a human, embark on a swashbuckling adventure. However, lacking the tragic overtones of Ill Met in Lankhmar, which gave that story such depth, The Dog Said Bow, Wow, is light fare in comparison.

In Summation: 2001, Gardner Dozois gives what amounts to a state of the union address for the science fiction publishing world. Covering everything from fanzines through the major publishing houses, this fifty-four-page summation provides more than a bare bones summary of who is still around, who has departed and who has entered the field. This summation provides a prosaic reminder of just how much science fiction is a small business. In a world of high tech wizardry, the dreamers of such technological futures rely little on rockets, lasers or robots.

Science fiction is kept alive through the laborious work of diligent and creative authors. At the far end of this anthology is a listing of more than 300 stories, which were given an honorable mention. With the quantity and quality of science fiction available, the genre is alive and well.

Overall, this is a solid collection of short fiction, regardless of genre. If a few of the stories have slow and clumsy spots, they are all readable. Surprising, even a few of the more predictable stories elicit a shiver or two by their conclusion. Pound for pound, this is a well-balanced meal filled with food for thought.

Bookworm's Briefing
Gardner Dozois, editor of Asimov's Science Fiction, has again assembled a solid collection of science fiction stories for The Year's Best Science Fiction - Nineteenth Annual Collection. Among the gems here are The Chief Designer, offering a glimpse at the Soviet Union's attempts at beating the Americans to the moon; and The Real Thing, a comic story of a future where information is the ultimate resource, whether or not it is factual. Ranging from new authors to old masters, these stories represent the best of the genre.

Based on the past couple of decades, next year's collection is sure to fire the imaginations of countless readers and writers.