Reviews

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 3 by Jonathan Strahan

spitzig's review against another edition

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2.0

Two of these were good stories. One, about a kid whose uncle paints an angel. The other about a soldier/assassin in a world of heavy gene modification. Those stories would get 4 stars.

Absolutely none of the others were memorable. All these others would get 2 stars.

not_mike's review against another edition

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3.0

Paperback.

Not bad, skipped a bit and didn't read half of them. Stories that stayed with me were by Holly Jones, Stephen King, Kijj Johnson (read before this collection though), Elizabeth Bear, and Paolo Bacigalupi.

buildhergender's review against another edition

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4.0

Exhalation: That one blew my mind. I spent days trying to think of ways to fix the robot dilemma.
I actually finished all the stories in this collection and only found one or two that left me wondering WTF?
That is a pretty good ratio for modern stories.

wealhtheow's review against another edition

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3.0

Pretty good, but as always a mixed bag.

The good or thought-provoking:
Ted Chiang's "Exhalation," in which a world of wind-up robots realizes that their very acts of moving, thinking and talking is slowly ending their universe.

Peter S. Beagle's "Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel," is a fantastic character study and slice-of-life of mid-century Jewish New Yorkers.

Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Gambler," about a Vietnamese immigrant's career as a journalist. He has one last chance to tell a sensational story.

Paul Mcauley's "The Thought War," about a zombie invasion that's really reality changing with observation.

Meghan McCarron's "The Magician's House," about a teenaged girl learning magic. Very different view on magic and how it could be taught.

Margo Lanagan's "Machine Maid," is about a new bride who finds that her wind-up maid is her key to escaping her husband.

Greg Egan's "Crystal Nights" is a great story because the main character misses so much, even while other characters clearly understand what's going on. A dot-com gazillionaire tries to create AI through directed evolution within a computer.

Hannu Rajaniemi's "His Master's Voice," is like Homeward Bound crossed with nannites. A cat and a dog strive to bring their master back to life.


The ones that annoyed me, or were just plain bad:
Jeff Vandermeer's "Fixing Hanover" is about an engineer who fled his empire when he found out what his inventions were being used for. Years later, he makes a living as an unrespected handyman. But then he repairs one too many things, and the empire comes back again...Could have been good, but the only characterization we have in regards to the main character is that the hottest chick in the village has sex with him all the time and everyone's really jealous. Seriously, that's all we're shown about this man, who's supposedly wracked with shame over the wars he helped win. Vandermeer has consistently disappointed me.

John Kessel's "Pride and Prometheus" is a shameless attempt to write Frankenstein fanfic while pretending it has something to do with Austen. He seems to have randomly decided that Mary Bennet is an inquisitive naturalist, held back only by her foolish family's sexism. Cuz that totally jives with her actual source material! The story itself is not nearly good enough to warrant the use of Austen and Shelley's characters--it's basically just Mary, Frankenstein, and the monster talking to each other.

Kij Johnson's "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss." Too weird and senseless for me.

madarauchiha's review

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slow-paced
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.0

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What a shit show. How is it the first installment in this series was amazing, and the 2nd and 3rd [this one] is such hot garbage? What the fuck.


β—† Shoggoths In Bloom
minor lynching, 
medium antisemitism, 
major open water, anti black racism, racism, anti black racism in historical context eg segregation, race riots, repeatedly brought up,
No further cws. the author is just too tactless with anti black racism.

CW anti black racism examples.
 
Doctor Harding? Well, huh. I never met a colored professor before
 

 
Harding's an educated man, well-read, and he's the grandson of Nathan Harding, the buffalo soldier. An African-born ex-slave who fought on both sides of the Civil War, when Grampa Harding was sent to serve in his master's place, he deserted, and lied, and stayed on with the Union Army after.
 
 
  "Sounds like my department head," Harding says, leaning back against the gunwale, feeling like he's taking an enormous risk. But the fisherman just looks at him curiously, as if surprised the talking monkey has the ambition or the audacity to joke. 
 

 
A Negro professor from a Negro college. That kind of a fool.


β—† Uncle Chaim And Aunt Rifke And The Angel by Peter S Beagle
minor infidelity, drug weed, medical situations, emetophobia, murder, suicide, violence, 

medium antisemitism, child abuse, domestic violence, childhood bully, 

major possession, 

β—† Fixing Hanover
minor slavery [general, not expressly Black slavery], 
medium NSFW sex scene, 
major war, genocide, death, colonization, 

β—† The Gambler
medium insects, extinction, pedophilia, csa, pregnancy, grooming, 
major gambling, 
CW major racism
But his karma was to be a teacher and a researcher, and so while he was increasing Lao rice production by 30 percent, he was also filling himself with gambler's fancies: Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Sakharov, Mandela, Aung Sung Kyi. True gamblers, all. He would say that if white South Africans could be made to feel shame, then the pretender monarch must right his ways. He claimed that Thoreau must have been Lao, the way he protested so politely.
In my father's description, Thoreau was a forest monk, gone into the jungle for enlightenment. To live amongst the banyan and the climbing vines of Massachusetts and to meditate on the nature of suffering. My father believed he was undoubtedly some arhat reborn. He often talked of Mr. Henry David, and in my imagination this falang, too, was a large man like my father.


uh this is where I'm stopping, no further cws. why is a white Italian man writing this racist shit. 

β—† The Dust Assassin

I'm not interested in reading stories set in exotic lands written by whites. also the author uses it/its pronouns for mystical trans characters which I consider repulsive. no cws. 

β—† Virgin
minor starvation, drugs, slut shaming, pedophilia joke, NSFW, underage drinking and drugs, 

medium child abuse, murder, abandonment, guns, gore, emetophobia, 

major orphaning, 

β—† Pride And Prometheus
medium body horror, religion christianity, 

major grave desecration off screen, sinophobia in making the villainous character have yellow skin, misogyny, 

two uses of the anti Rromani g slur 

β—† The Thought War
minor genocide, nuclear weapons, mass death, wars, 
medium body horror, 
major religion christianity, pandemic diseases off screen, 

β—† Beyond The Sea Gates Of The Scholar Pirates Of SarskΓΆe

minor alcohol,
Major open waters / oceans, 


β–ͺ Syndical
It was well written but nothing really happened and it just felt like a pitch for a full novel. 

minor NSFW, unsanitary, 
medium cannibalism, body horror, violence, guns, 
major slavery off screen, 

β—† The Small Door
minor drugs weed tobacco, 
medium cancer, unreality, 

β—† Turing's Apples
minor anti indigenous racism, 
medium ww2, nazism, death, nuclear weapons, ableism towards intelligence, 

β–ͺ European (minor colonization, 
minor death, explosions, 
medium terror attack, religion, governmental abuse of power and privacy abuse, 


β—† The New York Times At Special Bargain Rates

skipped, I dont read stephen king

β—† The Magician's House
minor sexism, 
medium unreality, claustrophobia, NSFW scene,  

major pedophilia, csa, grooming, teacher student rape, marital infidelity, no further cws I'm quitting this one. Can authors learn to masturbate before writing so we're not afflicted with their porn disguised as novels?

β—† Goblin Music
major antisemitism. no further cws. 

β—† Machine Maid
Asian racism spoiler:
Tis good for nobody but Chinamen now." And indeed I saw several of the creatures, in their smockish clothing and their umbrella-ish hats, each with his long pigtail, earnestly working at a pile of tailings in the gully that ran by the road.
 
minor use of the anti Rromani g slur, 
medium sinophobia and racial slurs, no further cws I fucking hate white authors writing racist trash. Die in a fire and be forgotten.

β—† The Art Of Alchemy
medium death, violence, gore, black person death, 
major anti black racism Jezebel trope imo, 


β—† 26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss
major unreality, monkeys, 

β—† Marry The Sun
minor child death, beastiality metaphor, 
medium fire, alcohol, misogyny, 

β—† Crystal Nights
medium torture, experimentation, starvation, mass death, unsanitary, 
major eugenics, 

β—† His Master's Voice
medium nuclear weapons, gore, death, 
major dogs, human experiments, 

β—† Special Economics
Asian racism spoiler: <spoilers> The woman at the recruiting office was a flat-faced southerner with buckteeth. Watermelon picking teeth. </spoilers> 

Asian racism from a white author. no further cws. 

β—† Evidence Of Love In A Case Of Abandonment: One Daughter's Personal Account
minor pregnancy, 

major murder, hanging deaths, gore, abortion rights theme, childhood trauma, femicide, secret police, misogyny, genocide, abortion, 

note this story us pretty white considering the lack of representation of black people and their history of reproductive abuse. To say nothing of many people of colors' experience with reproductive rights. 

β—† From Babel's Fall'n Glory We Fled . . .
minor insects, major mass death, demolition, 

note. this story is basically european colonizers committing atrocities and genocide to an 'Other'. no further cws. Like, you can see the ending a mile a way, and that's not a compliment.

β—† If Angels Fight
White politicians as main characters? How boring.

minor two uses of the ableist ps*cho slur, one use of the homophobic f slur, 2 uses of the ableist r slur, nsfw, assassination, Madonna [singer], bone fractures, heights, us confederacy, terrorism, 

medium drugs legal medication and others, drowning, hypothermia, guns, alcohol, politics, 

major possession, john f kennedy, 

β—† The Doom Of Love In Small Spaces
incredibly repulsive cis male writing. you know ge kind. breasted boobily down the stairs, excessive objectification, etc etc

β—† Pretty Monsters
minor transmisogyny, drugs sudafed, emetophobia, pregnancy, marital infidelity, divorce, spiders tarantula, nudity, grooming?, NSFW, 

medium nudity, underage nudity, animal gore, animal rights activism, animal exploitation, demolition, explosions, insect, underage drinking ,medical situations, blood, sharps, ocean, drowning, 


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karenteacher's review

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4.0

There were some very interesting stories in this collection; however, while reading several of them, I had difficulty determining how they fit in the category of science fiction / fantasy. They were still good, but some were sf/fantasy only by virtue of setting, and others only by virtue of a twist in the last little bit of the story.
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