A review by nwhyte
Year's Best SF 6 by David G. Hartwell

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1331230.html[return][return]This pulls together Hartwell's selection of the best stories of 2000. As you would expect, they are all good: the standouts for me are David Langford's 'Different Kinds of Darkness', from his series of BLIT stories, this one set in a boarding school for specially talented children; Greg Egan's 'Oracle', which has an alternate-universe take on the possible interactions between C.S. Lewis and Alan Turing; and Teg Chiang's 'Seventy-Two Letters', which combines steampunk and qabalah.[return][return]It is interesting to compare Hartwell's choices with those of the Hugo and Nebula voters that year. 'Different Kinds of Darkness' won the Hugo for Best Short Story (deservedly and decisively; the other nominees were all terrible). 'Oracle' and 'Seventy-Two Letters' were both on the Hugo shortlist for Best Novella, but were beaten by Jack Williamson's 'The Ultimate Earth', which is not as good a story as either but was obviously the last chance to give an award to the nonagenarian author (it won the Nebula too, I guess for the same reason). None of Hartwell's selections made it to the Nebula shortlist, or even the preliminary ballot, for either year of eligibility. Draw your own conclusions...