2024 the best of the best 2 review

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For more than twenty years The Year's Best Science Fiction has been recognized as the best collection of short science fiction writing in the universe and an essential resource for every science fiction fan. In 2005 the original Best of the Best collected the finest short stories from that series and became a benchmark in the SF field. Now, for the first time ever, Hugo Award-winning editor Gardner Dozios sifts through hundreds of stories and dozens of authors who have gone on to become some of the most esteemed practitioners of the form, to bring readers the ultimate anthology of short science fiction novels from his legendary series.
Included are such notable short novels as:

Sailing to Byzantium by Robert Silverberg
In the fiftieth century, people of Earth are able to create entire cities on a whim, including those of mythology and legend. When twentieth-century traveler Charles Philip accidentally lands in this aberrant time period, he is simultaneously obsessed with discovering more about this alluring world and getting back home. But in a world made entirely of man's creation, things are not always as they seem on the surface.

Forgiveness Day by Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin returns to her Hainish-settled interstellar community, the Edumen, to tell the tale of two star-crossed lovers who are literally worlds apart in this story of politics, violence, religion, and cultural disparity.

Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds
On a sea-wold planet covered with idyllic tropical oceans, peace seems pervasive. Beneath the placid water lurks an ominous force that has the potential to destroy all tranquility.

Contributors include: Greg Egan; Joe Haldeman; James Patrick Kelly; Nancy Kress; Ursula K. Le Guin; Ian R. MacLeod; Ian McDonald; Maureen F. McHugh; Frederick Pohl; Alastair Reynolds; Robert Silverberg; Michael Swanwick; Walter Jon Williams

With work spanning two decades, The Best of the Best, Volume 2 stands as the ultimate anthology of short science fiction novels ever published in the world.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000SEI71W
Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (February 6, 2007)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 6, 2007
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4198 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 660 pages
Reviewer: Paul Cook
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Excellent Collection of Novellas and Novelettes from Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Anthologies
Review: As an editor, Gardner Dozois has tended to prefer the novelette and novella to the short story when he goes about selecting stories for his Year's Best editions. I think this is because he likes an author to take his or her time to tell their story and to build the world within which the story takes place. Short stories can't do this very well. The collection here is actually the 2nd half of his Best of the Best collections. The first volume contained the best short stories from his Year's Best anthologies; this collection contains the novelettes and novellas. All are quite good, with many of them winning Nebula Awards or Hugo Awards in the years they came out. Besides the quality of story-telling in these two volumes, you actually get quite a lot of stories for the price of admission. As anyone who has read the Year's Best collections (there are usually about six or seven of them published every year), not every year or every collection has good stories. Some years are better than others. The advantage of these two collections is that they are the best of the best. This collection (and Volume One) belongs on your bookshelf.

Reviewer: Tom Zurfluh
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Thinking persons sci fi
Review: Stories that make you think. Not all fast paced but all interesting. Last is probably my favorite. I will be reading the next volume.

Reviewer: Kindle Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Not Free SF Reader
Review: In his introduction Dozois says he has chosen from his favorite novellas in the first twenty volumes of his Year's Best Series, barring leaving out a couple that were being published at the time.A length of which he is a fan, apparently : "Unlike many of today's novel, all too many of wihch strike me as novellas grossly padded-out to be five hundred pages long, there are rarely any wasted words in a novella".Padding is right in a lot of books, couldn't agree more, but presumably length sells - although editors of course make heaps more work for themselves with longer novels. If you have to fix 120K words rather than 80K, anybody can work that one out.This book came about, he says because the first volume, Best of the Best had novellas, too, but there were lots more to fit in. Apparently he has selected 100-120 over the life of the series, or thereabouts.Seeing this volume is considerably shorter, as far as story count goes, it will run the risk of not having the chance to appeal to as many people on probability, I would think, given a selection of his own exactly particular taste, rather than a deliberate wider ranger.Holds true for me, I think, as none of my own particular favorites of those volumes I have read, here, but The Hemingway Hoax is rather good.So the score is only 3.69, which is lower than your standard 3.80 average score for his Year's Best series.This, however, is still an excellent anthology.Best of the Best 2 : Sailing To Byzantium - Robert SilverbergBest of the Best 2 : Surfacing - Walter Jon WilliamsBest of the Best 2 : The Hemingway Hoax - Joe HaldemanBest of the Best 2 : Mr. Boy - James Patrick KellyBest of the Best 2 : Beggars In Spain - Nancy KressBest of the Best 2 : Griffin's Egg - Michael SwanwickBest of the Best 2 : Outnumbering The Dead - Frederick PohlBest of the Best 2 : Forgiveness Day - Ursula K. LeGuinBest of the Best 2 : The Cost To Be Wise - Maureen F. McHughBest of the Best 2 : Oceanic - Greg EganBest of the Best 2 : Tendeleo's Story - Ian McDonaldBest of the Best 2 : New Light On The Drake Equation - Ian R. MacLeodBest of the Best 2 : Turquoise Days - Alastair ReynoldsTedious travelogue and artificial lifetime constraints.3 out of 5Undersea communication research alien possession accomodation.4 out of 5Multiple serial murder mayhem over Ernie's multiversal missing manuscript mania.4.5 out of 5Not wanting to grow up attitude certainly isn't helped by mum's mechanical approach to parenting.3.5 out of 5Sleeping is a waste of time.4 out of 5Terran nuclear nightmare, moon mental mimetic mayhem amidst crisis predicted canoodling.3.5 out of 5Famous actor guy unluckily gotta die through space will fly.3.5 out of 5Ekumen embassy explosion entrapment unrest.4 out of 5Having to eat your dog will make you sad.3 out of 5A boy growing up in a backward fundamentalist community on another planet begins to understand how much the local biology has altered the people that live there, and why a religion surrounds this.3.5 out of 5A Kenyan woman and her community come to terms with an alien infestation, as the outsider who fancies her adapts as well.4 out of 5A story about a hermit-like SETI astronomer and his past relationships.4 out of 5I sea we have a problem.3.5 out of 54.5 out of 5

Reviewer: TinyWanda
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: I only read The first story…
Review: It’s an interesting idea to decide how you’re going to arrange several stories into an anthology— you don’t put The best story first or last, The best story should go around at The 60% point, with The 2nd best story last, so that The reader has good feeling about The collection at their end — but to put The worst story at The beginning has a decidedly morbid sense to it ?Having only read The first story, why do i believe this was The worst ?It’s kind of a nice story at first, then developed a nice twist, then another twist, then another twist, all hallmarks of delightful writing, but — it’s also exhausting!Then to stagnate at some point thereafter, & requiring your reader to slog through page after page after page of no plot development at all, that becomes unbearable !+ The structure of The book has that short of ‘thrown together’ sensibly to it. As if The collector didn’t care which one was going to be first ?

Reviewer: Discerning Reader
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great collection of mostly excellent sci-fi stories and novellas
Review: Another excellent collection of classic novellas and short stories. Most are truly excellent, but as in any collection, the works vary. Not all are what i would consider true sci-fi, as some have more fantasy elements, but that distinction between sci-fi and fantasy is a tough one to pin down.Overall, a great collection.The only negative I find is the book is actually pretty physically heavy. Had it been in two volumes it would be easier to read. That too is very subjective.My grade, A-

Reviewer: Michael Hying
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Finished the collection
Review: I own copies of all 35 volumes of Dozois' Years Best collections. This was the last piece to make it complete.

Reviewer: Osvaldo Cristo
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very good companion to travel
Review: It is an amazing collection of stories - I prefer to read short stories than a standard novel while travelling as it is easier to interrupt my readings by the end of a full story. Besides that, most of the times I prefer short stories than regular novels as short stories has a higher information density as its authors usually do not lost time in mumbo-jumbo.Mr. Gardner made a good work to select them and I ordered the volume one a few days ago (I did not received it yet).

Reviewer: Ian
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great book
Review: I don't have much experience with sci-fi short stories, but after this book, I have a new interest in them. I go this book as it was required by a class. I have now read about half of the stories in it, and it is a great collection! I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants a good read.