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Best ever Year's Best SF anthology.
There is an argument that Terry Carr's selection for the Best SF stories of 1984 is the greatest such anthology ever assembled. Other ‘Best of’ anthologies have managed to capture five of the six Hugo and Nebula winners, but none have done so with as few as 13 stories to choose from. In fact, of the stories present, no less than 9 were candidates for one or the other. The collection opens with John Varley’s ‘Press Enter,’ a chilling story of a Korean War veteran whose paranoia keeps him alive against an insidious threat from what is now known as cyberspace. Mystery turns to humour in Connie Willis' Blue Moon, an amusing study of chance and industrial emissions. From small town Wyoming, the reader is taken to Egypt, when it was under Greek rule, in the early centuries BC, for Charles L. Harness' colourful 'Solstice,' in which an alien star-farer crash-lands and has to repair his ship. Harness brings the verve of Golden Age Science Fiction to this, his last major story. Another historical setting is Tinian Island in 1945, where the action for 'The Lucky Strike' takes place. Kim Stanley Robinson takes a poignant look at what might have happened, had another plane flown the mission to bomb Hiroshima; ironically, what was one of the stronger stories in its day has now faded, along with memories of the Cold War. God and transcendentalism feature both in Michael Swanwick's 'Trojan Horse,' and 'Trinity' by Nancy Kress, which rounds off the collection, both finalists for major awards that were won by Octavia E. Butler for her harrowing 'Bloodchild,' set on an alien planet where humans are kept as pets. Lee Montgomerie's 'Green Hearts,' takes the reader to a future Mars where bio-technology has made shape-shifting and cloning common-place for a story of teenage love. Pamela Sargent's 'Fears' extends India's existing problems with parents not wanting to have duaghters to nightmarish lengths in an eerily prescient vision. But the outstanding story in the collection, and arguably the finest SF short story of its length ever written, is Gardner Dozois' 'Morning Child.' Set in a post-apocalyptic Deep South ravaged by war, and where strange technologies light up the night sky, Williams and his companion eke out a marginal existence. John is the eponymous morning child, who starts each day as a child and by nightfall is an old man, before rejuvenating each night. A haunting final paragraph gives this an emotional karate chop to the reader's throat and makes it linger long in the memory.
The copyright of the article Years Best Science Fiction #14 in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction is owned by Colin Harvey. Permission to republish Years Best Science Fiction #14 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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