I love anthologies, they have the best SF, and sometimes you find the Author of a great story also has novels you'll like. I also realize that there will be some stories in any collection that don't appeal to me .this one got a 3 because there were just too many i just skipped over after a few pages ( )

5 🌟 for these stories:
Passage of Earth by Michael Swanwick
Vladimir Chong Chooses to Die by Lavie Tidhar
Shooting the Apocalypse by Paulo Bacigalupi
Gran Jeté by Rachel Swirsky
Covenant by Elizabeth Bear
Shadow Flock by Greg Egan
Thing and Sick by Adam Roberts
Yesterday's Kin by Nancy Kress ( )

There are some very very excellent stories in this anthology. I greatly enjoyed! ( )

I'm going to do this the only sensible way: Story by story, with a short synopsis for each.

1. "The fifth dragon"--9.8/10. A very interesting futuristic, non-binary love story set in a very interesting world. Truly good.

2. "The rider"--7/10. Nothing terrible special, but a sort of interesting look into a future where AIs fight among themselves

3. "The days of the war, as red as blood, as dark as bile"-- 5/10. This one didn't catch me at all. It has a great title, but nothing beyond that.

4. "The burial of sir john mawe at cassini"--7/10. An interesting look at a victorian mars populated by some very interesting creatures. But unfortunately too much strange, too little backstory.

5. "The regular"--9/10. Cyberpunk detective story with great characters. yes please.

6. "The woman from the ocean"--7.5/10. Not bad at all, and interesting look at good intentions gone awry, but not great.

7. "Shooting the apocalypse"--8.7/10. A great look at a future we may not be too far from, with battles in the american west over water rights.

8. "weather"--5/10. Strange, and not good.

9. "the hand is quicker"--9/10. A look at how the rise of true virtual reality may widen the societal divide between rich and poor even more

10. "The man who sold the moon"--10/10. A true gem, with great characters, interesting tech, a shoutout to the builder culture that's on the rise, as well as burning man...great all around. I cried at the end

11. "Vladimir Chong chooses to die" -- 5/10. nothing really special, and hard to follow

12. "Beside the damned river"-- 6/10. Not bad, just forgettable

13. "The colonel"--7.3/10. Impressively written in a good universe but doesn't seem to have much of a point to it.

14. "Entanglement"--9.5/10. In a world where everybody is pulling together to maintain modern living standards in the face of extreme weather events, this story shows us a couple view points in an engagingly written style.

15. "White curtain"--9/10. Originally written in Russian, and just as depressingly nihilistic as you would expect a story about being able to choose among the multiverse to be. In a good way.

16. "Slipping"--8/10. Enhanced biotics in sports!

17. "Passage of earth"--9/10. psychological horror (with a protagonist who is a pathologist!) looking at some very VERY alien intelligences.

18. "Amicae Aeternum"--6/10. Meh. I see what the author was trying to with the whole "generation-ship leaving everything behind", but it's just not great.

19. "In babelsberg"--8.5/10. Interesting to see a story written from the point of view of an all-too-human AI

20. "Sadness"--6/10. Interesting, but too little backstory"

21. "West to east"--9.2/10. A doomed expedition tries everything possible to survive, and decides to go all-out to get one last message off....

22. "Grand Jete"-- 9.4/10. A great examination of what it means to be "me". If you put a dying girl's consciousness into a machine body, is the new girl the same as the old, or something else entirely?

23. Covenant--8/10. A serial killer who has had all the fight programmed out of him (and become a her)...finds herself on the other end of the stick, as it were.

24. "Jubilee"--6/10. I really tried to like it more, and I could see a full-fledged novel coming out of the setting, but it doesn't work as a short story/novella.

25. "Los piratas del mar de plastico"-- 8/10. Not quite sci-fi, but a good story.

26. "Red lights, and rain"--9/10. Time-traveling agents that explains the origins of vampires. What's not to love?!

27. "coma kings"-- 8/10. Video games can drive people apart, but they can also bring them together, especially when the game is fully interactive...

28. "The prodigal son"--8.5/10. A privately funded starship has some logistical and cultural issues to overcome before it launches

29. "God decay"--8/10. A love story that reveals the price behind being better than everybody else.

30. "Blood wedding"--9.5/10. Opposing factions with very different ideas about technology and stubborn, inflexible, patriarchs come together for a wedding....but not one that goes well.

31. "The long haul, from the annals of transportation, the pacific monthly, may 2009"--9/10. A world where zeppelins stayed aloft and replaced 18-wheelers for transport of goods. Excellent characters and a true joy to read.

32. "Shadow flock"--7/10. drones in crime, and loss of privacy as drones get smaller and smaller....

33. "Thing and sick"--5/10. An attempt at psychology horror and the Fermi paradox, but it flubs its chance.

34. "Communion"--8/10. Cross-species cultural communication crosses sacrosanct lines, but leads to better understanding.

35. "Someday"--7.3/10. courtship in a very alien, but very human, way.

36. "yesterday's kin-- 10/10. Divergent evolution, "aliens" and humanity interacting in the face of a mortal threat to both...



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Excellent addition to the series with some memorable stories. Definitely one of the best Annual Collection I've read. ( )