edited by Gardner Dozois ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 16, 2003
For all libraries, absolutely.
Without question, the Dozois SF annuals deserve rosettes.
Editor Dozois’s usual exhaustive retrospection on the year’s events in SF was missing from our galley, but as in last year’s thought-provoking, at times lighthearted collection, Dozois kicks off here with a long story by Ian R. MacLeod (The Great Wheel, 1997), among the most literary of SF stylists. The present tale, “Breathmoss,” is an elegant masterpiece of moist landscape and world-building that turns on the coming-of-age of Jalila on Habara in the Season of Soft Rains. Jalila must now leave her dreamtent on the high plains of Tabuthal, where the breathmoss first grew in her lungs and allowed her to breathe, and, with her three mothers, enter Habara’s busy coastal city to prepare for her part in populating the Ten Thousand and One worlds beyond the Gateway, entering the Pain of Distance as she crawls “across this particular page of her universe.” Appearing again also is Hugo and Nebula winner Nancy Kress, this time with the moving “The Most Famous Little Girl in All the World,” which tells of Kyra, who at ten walked up into a spaceship that landed in the pasture and after an hour came out again. Then the spaceship left. Throughout Kyra’s long and varied life, her cousin Amy and the rest of the world want to know what the aliens looked like and what they told her or did to her. Although she doesn’t remember too clearly, the reader comes to wonder whether it might not be that she was engineered to have no fear of aliens. Not to be missed: Alastair Reynolds’s “Turquoise Days” and what lies beneath the utter serenity of a quiet, peaceful little planet. Other outstanding contributions come from Gregory Benford, Charles Stross, Paul McAuley, and Robert Reed.
For all libraries, absolutely.Pub Date: July 16, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-30859-0
Page Count: 688
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
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by TJ Klune ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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PERSPECTIVES
by Blake Crouch ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2016
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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