Eight good tales in a row

 kw: story reviews, science fiction, collections, anthologies, short stories

In the busyness of the end of the year, I still caught the odd moment to read, and finished the last eight stories in The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8, edited by Neil Clarke. All are worth reading. This image doesn't relate to any story particularly, but is Dall-E3's take on the prompt, "The ultimate space fiction image."

As I read I noted a core idea from each story, or a thought that it prompted. I'll list these core ideas, and make an added comment on just a few of them.

• "Down and Out in Exile Park" by Tade Thompson – "Plastic island and pheromones" – The best of the 8. One of the great oceanic plastic garbage patches has been anchored off Nigeria. A thriving society of "fringe folk" has developed there. A very elderly woman who has the strange characteristic of emitting pheromones that make someone nearby feel euphoric and empathic may be the "glue" that holds it all together. When she dies, then what? (This one doesn't have the sad ending one might expect)
• "Two Spacesuits" by Leonard Richardson – "A cool take on indwelling aliens"
• "Nonstandard Candles" by Yoon Ha Lee – "Map as a creative tool" – These cartographers map an empty volume of intergalactic space, then begin adding structure to it, with interesting results.
• "Inheritance" by Hannah Yang – "Inheriting memories"
• "A Hole in the Light" by Annalee Newitz – "Semi-amoeboid creatures that smell chemistry"
• "Letters to my Mother" by Chnelo Onwualu – "Post-apocalyptic; how telepaths deal with grief" – I used the word "telepath", but what do you call the clairvoyant talent for reading emotions of a writer by touching handwriting?
• "In the Dream" by Meg Elison – "Unexpected consequence of chem-induced sleeplessness"
• "Aconie's Bees" by Jessica Reisman – "Transition"

Perhaps a story or two is High Concept, and the core idea is pretty much all there is. But these writers are creative and sophisticated. They take us places we didn't dream existed.