| Title | : | The Year's Top Short SF Novels |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 409 |
| Publication | : | First published November 10, 2011 |
“Return to Titan,” by Stephen Baxter, is set in his Xeelee sequence. Michael Poole and his father search one of Saturn’s moons for sentient life that would interfere with their plans to build a gateway to the stars. In this year’s Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner for best short fiction, “The Sultan of the Clouds,” by Geoffrey A. Landis, a terraforming expert is inexplicably invited to Venus by the child who owns most of the planet’s habitable floating cities. “Seven Cities of Gold,” by David Moles, tells the story of a Japanese relief worker charged with tracking down the renegade Christian leader responsible for detonating a nuclear device in an Islam-occupied North American city. In “Jackie’s-Boy,” by Steven Popkes, an orphaned child befriends an uplifted elephant from the abandoned St. Louis Zoo as they trek south across a sparsely populated North America to find sanctuary. “A History of Terraforming,” by Robert Reed, involves a young boy’s ambition to take up his father’s work of terraforming Mars and then much of the solar system and discovers that much more than planets have been altered. In “Troika,” by Alastair Reynolds, the lone survivor of a mission that explored a massive alien object attempts to reveal what he discovered despite the wishes of the Second Soviet Union. Set in the author’s S’hdonni universe, “Several Items of Interest,” by Rick Wilber, the Earth ruling aliens ask a human collaborator to help quell a human insurrection led by the collaborator’s brother.
The Year's Top Short SF Novels Reviews
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It was just okay. Several of the stories felt like chapters out of something longer, some were just weird, but there were a couple gems
On a per story basis this is how I rate them:
“Return to Titan” by Stephen Baxter 2/5
- generally unsatisfying
“Jackie’s-Boy” by Steven Popkes 4/5
- good story with an interesting and detailed setting
“The Sultan of the Clouds” by Geoffrey A. Landis 3/5
- felt like a piece of something bigger
“Seven Cities of Gold” by David Moles 2/5
- felt like one of those "award winning" stories that no one really likes.
“A History of Terraforming” by Robert Reed 4/5
- for a short story this one covered a lot of ground and did it well
“Several Items of Interest” by Rick Wilber 3/5
- Odd but unsatisfying. Lots of hints at things that were never followed up on.
“Troika” by Alastair Reynolds 5/5
- Good hard SF tale with interesting twists and turns. -
This is a truly outstanding collection of novellas. Most anthologies are uneven at best, and many have more losers than winners. This is a clear exception. Every one of these works is exceptional.
It is true, as others have pointed out, that if you read a lot of SF short fiction you are likely to have read most--if not all--of these before. But that doesn't detract from the quality of the anthology and the editorial talent it took to select them. All of these stories are worth reading more than once, anyway. -
“Return to Titan” by Stephen Baxter 4/5
“Jackie’s-Boy” by Steven Popkes 3.5/5
“The Sultan of the Clouds” by Geoffrey A. Landis 3/5
“Seven Cities of Gold” by David Moles 3/5
“A History of Terraforming” by Robert Reed 3/5
“Several Items of Interest” by Rick Wilber 3/5
“Troika” by Alastair Reynolds 4/5 -
Good range within the collection. It's a good format, long enough for a good development of an idea but you're not compelled to stretch an idea into a series of acts. I have always felt that the short story has been unfairly looked down on.
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A good selection of short stories, but none were outstanding.
