21 April 2025

The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8

The eighth volume of Neil Clarke's The Best Science Fiction of the Year was released in 2024, collecting the best short fiction of 2022. (The series fell behind a year thanks to COVID and has unfortunately not managed to catch up yet.) As I usually do, I dipped in and out of it, reading a story every now and again between other books, stretching my reading across about five months.

The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8
edited by Neil Clarke

Collection published: 2024
Contents published: 2022
Acquired: September 2024
Read: October 2024–March 2025

As always I enjoyed the experience of catching up on the year's best short fiction, much of which I had not read. (I think there were just two Hugo finalists in here, even though, as always, much of what's here would have been quite competitive on a Hugo ballot in my opinion.) My very favorite story in the book I've already written up here: "If We Make It through This Alive" by A. T. Greenblatt. This tells the story of three women making a transcontinental road race in a postapocalyptic United States. Strong worldbuilding, great characterization. Other highlights included: (I will link to the story in question if it has a free and legal online version somewhere)

  • "The Dragon Project" by Naomi Kritzer. About genetically engineering custom animals, this story is—like a lot of Kritzer's work—cute and light but effectively done.
  • "Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist" by Isabel J. Kim. Neat metafictional piece about being the girlfriend of the main character in a cyberpunk dystopia, and the way she uses tropes to extend her own life. Stylishly told, cleverly written. My second encounter with Kim but hopefully not my last.
  • "The Historiography of Loss" by Julianna Baggott. Sharp and creepy story about a technology where people can simulate deceased loved ones. Similar premise to "Proof by Induction," I guess, but goes in a very different but just as effective direction.
  • "The Plastic People" by Tobias S. Buckell. I feel like I am always enjoying random stories by Buckell that I happen across; I probably should read a collection of them someday. Horrifying but great story about rich kids who adopt a climate refugee from the Earth's surface and are incapable of treating it like a human being.
  • "Mender of Sparrows" by Ray Nayler. Hard to discuss this one without giving a lot away, but I thought it was beautifully told and went in some unexpected directions. Like Buckell, Nayler seems like someone I should seek out more. 
  • "The Past Life Reconstruction Service" by Zen Cho. I always really enjoy Cho's short fiction, and this was no exception; a rich guy keeps exploring past lives to try to get over an ex-lover. Acutely observed characterization.
  • "Solidity" by Greg Egan. Over on r/printSF, Egan is praised for the rigor of his hard sf, but this is one of those stories by him that demonstrates he has a more dynamic range than even his devotees often grant him. People start slipping between realities, but in subtle, uneasy ways; you can be replaced, but only by someone who could plausibly be in the same situation. So how do people hang on to reality, and to each other, in such a trying circumstance? What would you do if you could never find your loved one again?
  • "Two Spacesuits" by Leonard Richardson. Many years ago, I read and very much enjoyed Richardson's novel Constellation Games, but have never read anything else by him. This was fun but weird. A guy's parents start doing weird stuff because of... alien YouTube videos?

Most years there's at least one story whose inclusion I find inexplicable, but I didn't experience that this time around; indeed, I was skeptical of "A Dream of Electric Mothers" by Wole Talabi going in, having read it before, but ended up enjoying it more this time around. Looking over the 2023 Hugo finalists again, I do think there are two notable omissions here (S. L. Huang's "Murder by Pixel" and Samantha Mills's "Rabbit Test") but both are in Clarke's 2021 recommended reading list at the back.

As always, if you like short sf, this is an indispensable read... at this point, it's the only sf best-of still going!

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