The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017

Hello readers and welcome to this installment of the (revamped) 2019 Reading List! At this point I am diving deep into the science fiction realm, last time getting through what is still considered an earlier masterpiece of the form. I decided to pivot from Heinlein to more contemporary work in the genre and picked up a collection I had almost no familiarity with, Houghton Mifflin’s long-running Best American series. The Science Fiction and Fantasy version was only in its third year by then, and while I am a little behind the times with this entry, this was a great look at the genre authors making waves in 2016, which as we all know was an important year in this country for a lot of horrific reasons. The series editor is John Joseph Adams, who in addition to editing runs his own imprint. The esteemed science fiction author Charles Yu was the guest editor. And while there were yards to learn from these talented authors I found there were only a few of the supposed “best” stories I thought deserving of the title.

I enjoyed the fantasy stories in this collection much more overall, which was a surprise for me. Leigh Bardugo’s Head, Scales, Tongue, Tail was an all-around show stopper, with excellent dialogue, setting and characters that stuck with me. This collection was also my first encounter with the extraordinary N. K. Jemisin, whose subversive and immersive Cthulhu-inverted The City Born Great towered over every other story. The legendary Peter Beagle told a fascinating eastern-inspired tale in The Story of Kao Yu, and Alice Sola Kim contributed a fearsome yarn inspired by her writing group in Successor, Usurper, Replacement. All of these stories were incredible examples of how to use the genre to say far more than what is on the surface, and I am looking forward to reading more of these authors.

There were a few science fiction stories I really liked, including a very Black Mirror-esque tale by Alexander Weinstein called Openness. Joseph Allen Hill scored with the final entry, The Venus Effect, a powerful allegory about police brutality. And there was a darkly funny “choose your own adventure” type of science fiction story in Caroline Yoachim’s Welcome to the Midnight Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0.

Before I get to what I didn’t like about this series, I must again stress that this was a great assemblage of talent. And yet, I found myself wondering if these tales were really the “best” of that year or if it was more of a subjective thing. There were a number of stories in here (Dale Bailey’s Teenagers From Outer Space, Debbie Urbanski’s When They Came to Us) that appeared to be less-great workings of Neil Blompkamp’s epic alien film of nearly a decade ago, District 9. And if I’m being nit-picky, Catherine Valente could have used a bit more research on her subject (the great garbage patches of the seas) in order to present it more realistically (they are not giant islands of refuse, as she seems to suggest). Some of the other stories Adams mentions in the introduction that did not make the cut (especially Sarah Pinsker’s Nebula finalist Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea) seemed like better work that could have been incorporated here.

I hate to end this on a downer note, but after spending two months on what is a very popular anthology series, I have to say I was fairly disappointed and am going to look elsewhere for my next genre collection. The subjectivity of the selection process, despite finding some amazing and talented authors, left something to be desired. But I did learn a ton about writing stories and as I’ve stated before, I am celebrating the publication of my very first short story this month.

Thanks for bearing with me as I eked out the time and space to for this collection and my thoughts on it. I will be continuing in the science fiction realm for the rest of the year, heading back into novel territory with another suggestion of my editor Libby: Omar el Akkad’s revolutionary 2017 book American War. Thanks as always for reading and writing!