Science Fiction: The Very Best of 2005

A herd of dinosaurs wander the fields of rural Vermont; a young girl discovers what happens when you're no longer a goddess in near-future India; Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are put to the test as a family is split apart and then redefined; the last man in the universe, stranded on Mars, searches for meaning with a pop song; and an artificially intelligent turtle questions Intelligent Design and evolution. These are just some of the fourteen award-nominated stories that acclaimed anthologist Jonathan Strahan has assembled in his third annual survey of the best new science fiction stories of the year. Jonathan Strahan has edited eleven anthologies, including The Locus Awards and assorted year's best annuals, and is currently working on several new anthology projects. He has won the Ditmar, William J Atheling Jr, and Peter McNamara Awards for his editing, and is the Reviews Editor for Locus, the magazine of the science fiction and fantasy fields. He lives in Perth, Western Australia with his wife and two daughters.
Contents:
Triceratops summer / Michael Swanwick --
Little faces / Vonda N. McIntyre --
The second coming of Charles Darwin / James Morrow --
Is there life after rehad? / Pat Cadigan --
Understanding space and time / Alastair Reynolds --
The fulcrum / Gwyneth Jones --
The Blemmye's strategem / Bruce Sterling --
They will raise you in a box / Wil McCarthy --
Finished / Robert Reed --
The king of where-I-go / Howard Waldrop --
The calorie man / Paolo Bacigalupi --
The fate of mice / Susan Palwick --
I Robot / Cory Doctorow --
The litte goddess / Ian McDonald.

That 2005 was a good year in sf Ian McDonald's "The Little Goddess," which closes Strahan's selection, attests in the story of a girl who became the goddess and tells us all about the ceremonies and rituals and boredom of being a goddess, getting kicked out of the temple, and what she does thereafter. Other particularly strong entries are Bruce Sterling's strange medieval story, "The Blemmeye's Stratagem"; Cory Doctorow's "I, Robot"; James Morrow's "The Second Coming of Charles Darwin," in which a time traveler and a tortoise set out to stop Darwin's studies on the Galapagos; and tales by Michael Swanwick, Alastair Reynolds, Susan Palwick, and Robert Reed. With 14 stories in all, each with an idiosyncratic view of the future, or the past, this is a horizon-broadening anthology. Regina Schroeder
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