this was an odd year. there were several authors with 2 pieces each In this volume, and i suppose that indicates a lack of good material in general. hard to say, as there appears to be a hard stratification where half are really good and the other half bizarre crap. this happens every so often in the sf genre, as a wave of literati artistic style rolls through. sort of like red tides at the beach... some rich treasures float in like ambergris, but surrounded by a lot of stink. ( )

These Annual collections are always full of ideas and with the honourable mentions give a good picture of SF in 2012 in this csse. Always well worth a read. ( )

Gardner Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction is always highly anticipated in my household, and this edition is no different. I have always trusted Dozois's tastes as an editor, and although I read much less science fiction than I used to, I still check out his choices eagerly. This year there were only a couple of stories that I had read previously (in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction), so most of the material was new to me. As with any anthology, there are some stories I like more than others, and a different reader is apt to like stories that I didn't and vice versa. That said, I was really taken by "Weep for Day," by Indrapramit Das, about humans on a planet half in daylight and half in darkness, waging genocide against the night people; "The Stars Do Not Lie," by Jay Lake, concerning Creationism and science on a distant planet; Eleanor Aranson's "Holmes Sherlock," part of her Hwarhathian series; "Steamgothic," by Sean McMullen; Elizabeth Bear's novella, "In the House of Aryaman, A Lonely Signal Burns," a mystery; "Sudden, Broken and Unexpected," by Steven Popkes, a rock'n'roll novella; "The Wreck of the 'Charles Dexter Ward,'" by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, essentially a zombies-on-a-spaceship tale; and Christopher Barzak's "Invisible Men," a retelling of Wells's The Invisible Man from the point of view of the maid-of-all-work at the inn where the title character hides out. A couple of observations that have probably been true for some time now, but that struck me in particular with this edition: A fairly high percentage of stories make a point of having lead or major characters who are LGB or T, and there are more non-Western authors being represented than ever before. In some cases, the gay element felt exploitative to me, in others it was intrinsic to the story; but with respect to the increasing inclusion of non-Western writers, I find that an excellent trend that I hope will continue! As ever with this collection, if you buy only one anthology of sff, this is the one to buy; highly recommended! ( )