The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2012 Edition, edited by Rich Horton
562 pages
Published 2012
Read from January 12 to February 1
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
At first I was inclined not to repeat the structure of my Subterranean
review; I wanted to give my overall impressions instead of a giant
rambly post detailing my reaction to each story. But it was hard to
resist jotting something down about each story as I read it. Plus, I
lost my motivation quite early in this volume and read it in bits and
pieces over the course of three weeks. Keeping notes as I went was the
only way to produce a meaningful review. So even though there are
twenty-nine stories this time instead of eleven, I'm going to subject
you to a paragraph (or at least a couple sentences) about each and every
one.
"Ghostweight" by Yoon Ha Lee. I have
zero idea how this story made anyone's "best of" anything list,
especially not in the year 2012. This is the sort of story that would
crop up once an issue in Analog in the late '90s, something that
so clearly didn't meet the same quality standards as the rest of the
stories that you wondered just what the editor saw in the damn thing.
This has everything I hate about "hard" science fiction: flimsy
characters, nonsensical technobabble, an almost nonexistent plot buried
under painfully "artistic" prose. This is a story where a woman seeks
revenge and thereby becomes a monster herself. That's it. That's an age
old plot; this story adds nothing to it. Oh, and it turns out her "ally"
in seeking revenge was the one who inadvertently caused her family to
be killed in the first place. Such a flimsy plot twist would only matter
if I gave a shit about either character, which I didn't, because
this story was awful. This story makes me angry. Here I am, publishing
my stories in non-paying zines no one's ever heard of, when this shit is
making its way not only into Clarkesworld (which rejected one of
my stories, the bastards), but into the industry's biggest and
best-selling annual best-of anthology, which probably has more readers
than any of the pro magazines. What the Christ.
"The Sandal
Bride" by Genevieve Valentine. This was a cute but insubstantial story. I
liked it but I doubt I'll remember much about it by the time March gets
here. Again, not sure how this is top of the line material.
"The
Adakian Eagle" by Bradley Denton. A fun and thoroughly enjoyable pulp
novella set in the Aleutians in World War II. It's so pulp, in fact,
that Dashiell Hammett is a main character. Yeah. I'm generally not a fan
of the "Historical personage (or classic author) has a straaaaange
adventure!" motif, which is far commoner than I would have believed.
Aside from this story's title and a couple awkward references to "a bird
statuette" and the like, however, it wasn't especially ham-handed. (Not
at all like this one Asimov's-published story in the late '90s,
"Interview with an Artist" I believe it was called, where a time
traveler, having changed history so Hitler became a moderately
successful artist instead of, well, a Hitler, was horrified to discover
that tampering with the timeline had made the Holocaust many times
worse. "The artist is Hitler!" was pretty much the entire substance of
the story.) "Eagle" was marred a little bit by its reliance on Magical
Native crap -- it's still Magical Native crap even if your Magical
Native scoffs at the idea of being a Magical Native -- but it wasn't as
bad as it could have been.
"The Sighted Watchmaker" by Vylar Kaftan. Not only is this story's title a pun on Dawkins, it opens with a quote from The Blind Watchmaker.
That's just a bit on-the-nose, don't you think? I tried to keep an open
mind regardless. The prose quality is quite good by genre standards. It
went down smooth. But that's the only positive thing I have to say
about it. Its basic storyline -- "Intelligent machine protects a planet
and nurtures the development of intelligent life, then abandons them so
they may 'grow up' on their own terms" -- strikes me as a completely
worn-out sci-fi cliche. And as much as I agree with the sentiment, "Why
would an intelligent race be violent and poison its own planet??"-style
moralizing got old sometime in the friggin' 1980s. I have a feeling I'll
keep saying this, but isn't this supposed to be the very best SF of 2012? Is genre fiction entirely exhausted, drained of all new ideas, lacking anything new to say?
"The
Girl Who Ruled Fairyland, For a Little While" by Catherynne M. Valente.
This title, by contrast, I liked. The story was great too. I have
higher tolerance for fantasy cliches than sci-fi ones, probably because I
find fantasy (and soft sci-fi) more entertaining in general. In fact, I
still find that hoariest of all old fantasy cliches, Faerie or
Fairyland or whatever you wanna call it, to be rather charming. This
story turns up the charm and whimsy and snaps off the knobs. Seriously,
it's fuckin' precious. Maybe a bit too precious -- it kind of made my
teeth hurt by the end.
"Walking Stick Fires" by Alan DeNiro. This
wasn't the best-written story, but it was delightfully gonzo. I wish I
could create narratives as batshit as this and give no fucks. It takes
confidence in addition to skill.
"Late Bloomer" by Suzy McKee
Charnas. A standard coming of age in small town America (with vampires)
story. Nothing special, nothing terrible either.
"The Choice" by
Paul McAuley. An alien artifact washes up on an English beach. Two
friends investigate; one of them begins to change. This is
bread-and-butter sci-fi, timeless and satisfying, telling a human-scale
story against a surreal backdrop, colored with deft references to The War of the Worlds.
Well, it isn't quite timeless -- the waterlogged pessimism and Third
World-ization of the West date it definitively to our current fashions
and outlook. But I can't object to that. Good story.
"East of
Furious" by Jonathan Carroll. Meh. This one didn't do anything for me.
No strong feelings one way or the other. "An alchemist and her divorce
lawyer drink coffee" is not as entertaining as it sounds.
"Martian
Heart" by John Barnes. This one started out meh but became surprisingly
moving. Baldly manipulative, but moving nonetheless.
"Pug" by
Theodora Goss. A charming, airy, almost weightless mood piece. I
particularly enjoyed its nonlinear structure, the way each small scene
established a bit more of the situation. I was disappointed when it
ended; I wanted more, and to see where it would lead.
"Rampion"
by Alexandra Duncan. Another really good one, a retelling of "Rapunzel"
set in Umayyad Spain. Like all good retellings, this one uses the fairy
tale as only one element of its overall plot, weaving a rich and
involving story around the basic thread of "Rapunzel." My only
dissatisfaction is with the ending; I find that short genre fiction in
general has a problem with "sticking" the ending.
"And Weep Like
Alexander" by Neil Gaiman. This is my first exposure to Gaiman's shorter
work. There isn't much to this story; it's barely three pages long, and
it's completely disappointing. The conceit of an uninventor is cute and
all, but the punchline -- "Smartphones make you dumb!" -- could've been
a banal status on your friend's Facebook four years ago. What a waste
of an excellent title.
In better news, it's January 31 now,
writing these as I go, and I'm officially halfway done with this book by
pagecount! It's only taken twenty days to get this far. How fast will I
finish the rest, now that I'm committing to it?
"Widows in the
World" by Gavin J. Grant. Transhumanism is, like nanotechnology, one of
those staple hard sci-fi cliches that's been run into the ground over
the last few decades. Also like nanotech, it's basically just magic at
this point, its stories nothing but fantasy under "futuristic" set
dressings. This story earns a few points by committing to the bonkers
imagery. It isn't as entertainingly gonzo as "Walking Stick Fires,"
though. My main impression of this story is flipping ahead to see how
many pages to the end. That, and the talking fetus. The talking fetus
was great.
"Younger Women" by Karen Joy Fowler. Speaking of stale
old Facebook jokes, here we have a scathing (and "timely"!) critique of
vampires who date teenage girls. Also, I'm kind of bugged that Fowler
quotes a recent National Geographic article without attribution. The one
good part of this story: it was short. I looked in the back of the
book, and sure enough, this was originally published in Subterranean. I thought it had that familiar Subterranean reek of mediocrity. (Again, I must remind you, this is supposed to be the year's best SF.)
"Canterbury
Hollow" by Chris Lawson. More bread-and-butter sci-fi: An underground
space colony has a population-control lottery! Two young people
"balloted" for extirpation fall in love and decide to end it together! I
found this one to be unremarkable until the final passage, which for
whatever reason moved me.
"The Summer People" by Kelly Link. I
loved this story. There just isn't enough magical Americana to go
around, that's what I always say. As someone not far removed
(ethnographically speaking) from the Kentucky hill country, I might
voice a slight objection to the main character's Twainian accent, but
honestly it never became distracting; it flowed well. Great stuff.
"Mulberry Boys" by Margo Lanagan. A delightfully grotesque yarn. Now this is the kind of dark, perverse fantasy I wish I could write.
"The
Silver Wind" by Nina Allan. A standard-issue timeline-manipulation tale
set (partially) in a standard-issue near-future British dystopia. Not a
bad story, but a forgettable one. Honestly I thought this sort of thing
was no longer fashionable. It certainly doesn't feel current, talk of
"Fortress Britain" and hard-line right-wing anti-immigrant technocratic
dictatorship aside.
"Choose Your Own Adventure" by Kat Howard. Now this is how you write a clever, whimsical, moving story in little more than three pages. Neil Gaiman should take notes.
"A
Small Price to Pay for Birdsong" by K.J. Parker. The first half or so
of this story was quite good, but after a certain point it began to
drag, and it ended well beyond where I think it should have. There were
two obvious (I thought) ending points, natural junctures to close off a
complete and satisfying story. If it had ended at either one of those
points, I feel it would've been a superior story. But it kept going and
overstayed its welcome.
"Woman Leaves Room" by Robert Reed.
There's a reason Robert Reed is one of the current darlings of the short
genre fiction set. This story was a skillful and affecting blend of
intimate human sadness and high concept sci-fi cliche. Excellent stuff.
"My Chivalric Fiasco" by George Saunders. I was skeptical of this one at first -- it was first published in Harper's,
and it was written in that current "artistic" prose fashion -- but holy
hell, did it grow on me. The prose worked to hilarious effect.
"The
Last Sophia" by C.S.E. Cooney. A languidly unsettling tale of
changelings. I'm running out of things to say about these things, but I
like this one.
"Some of Them Closer" by Marissa Lingen. Another
standard sci-fi tale, readjustment to life back on Earth after
relativistic time-loss. Pleasant, cute, sweet, not amazing, not
surprising.
"Fields of Gold" by Rachel Swirsky. Another passable
story: kind of sweet, kind of sad, kind of moving, kind of funny. Of the
two "bureaucratic mechanisms of death and afterlife help a middle-aged
failure learn the importance of life and love" stories I've read this
year, I prefer "Not Last Night but the Night Before" (in Subterranean 2), but this one was entirely acceptable.
"The
Smell of Orange Groves" by Lavie Tidhar. I'm a sucker for what might
patronizingly be termed "world sci-fi": stories by authors outside the
expected Anglophone nations. Tidhar, apparently, grew up in a kibbutz.
Between that and the evocatively exotic title, I had high expectations
for this piece. This one doesn't disappoint. It's more of a mood piece
than a story, but it satisfies. "World sci-fi" futures seem to feel more
lived-in, richer, louder, grimier, entrepreneurial and energetic rather
than defeated and pessimistic, full of scents and texture and odd
little details. This story conformed to that tendency. I loved every
word.
"The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" by E. Lily Yu. Now this is the story I've looked forward to since I first cracked
open this book, solely because it has far and away my favorite title in
the collection. And holy shit, was it ever good. This is
exactly the sort of thing I expected from a "year's best SF" anthology,
not that "Ghostweight" or "Younger Women" crap. I can't get over how
good this story is. You better go read it yourself. My favorite story in
the book, by a wide margin.
"The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by
Kij Johnson. The very last story, and also seemingly the longest. Just
when I'm most impatient to finish the damn thing, it throws an almost
sixty page novella my way. Sigh. Anything after "The Cartographer Wasps
and the Anarchist Bees" would be a letdown in any case. Regardless, I
really liked this novella. Sometimes it's nice to soak up a world, a
vibe, a sense of place, to take it easy and feel tender fondness while
watching the river of killer mist roll by. (This is the second published
work I've read this year with "killer mist" as a major plot element.
What gives?) Oddly, this story immediately reminded me of Albion, the
land in the Fable video games; perhaps it was the population of
cheerful, gender-blind villagers that's common to both. Being a
leisurely tale of an architect discovering something about himself
during a dangerous construction project, it reminded me of a novella I
wrote long ago, lost now, the world's last remaining copy languishing
the last fourteen years in the copyright storage library in DC. I'm
rambling again, sorry. The point is, this was a good story.
All
in all, this was a good book. I was torn on how to grade it -- three and
a half stars feels insufficient for the absolutely wonderful stories in
here, while four stars feels too forgiving of the crappy and mediocre
ones. But grades are arbitrary anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Many
of these stories will persist, haunting my memories for who knows how
long, and that's the best thing I can ask from a collection like this.
If I'd started reading best-of anthologies when I was 18, maybe I'd be a
much better writer today. As it is, I'm looking forward to checking out
another volume in this series; my library has at least two others.
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