For months the “best of 2015” anthologies have been showing up, and this year there seem to be more of them than ever. I don’t always buy any, rarely buy more than one, but thanks to reviews, particularly on Black Gate, this year I bought two. Very little overlap.
Meeting Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan, Solaris December 2015, trade paperback, 352 pages. Strahan is one of my favorite SF editors, and I have two other Infinity anthologies he has helmed, both very good indeed.
Table of Contents:
- “Memento Mori” by Madeline Ashby
- “My Last Bringback” by John Barnes
- “Aspects: A Galactic Centre Story” by Gregory Benford
- “Rates of Change” by James S.A. Corey
- “In Blue Lily’s Wake” by Aliette de Bodard
- “Body Politic” by Kameron Hurley
- “Drones” by Simon Ings
- “Emergence” by Gwyneth Jones
- “Cocoons” by Nancy Kress
- “The Cold Inequalities” by Yoon Ha Lee
- “The Falls: A Luna Story” by Ian McDonald
- “Exile from Extinction” by Ramez Naam
- “Outsider” by An Owomoyela
- “Desert Lexicon” by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
- “Pictures from the Resurrection” by Bruce Sterling
- “All the Wrong Places” by Sean Williams
The Year’s Best Science Fiction – The Thirty-Third Collection edited by Gardner Dozois, St. Martin’s Griffin July 2016 trade paperback, 674 pages. The ever- reliable Dozois edits the 33rd annual Year’s Best SF set of stories.
Table of Contents:
- “The Falls: A Luna Story,” by Ian McDonald
- “Three Cups of Grief, By Starlight,” by Aliette de Bodard
- “Ruins,” by Eleanor Arnason
- “Gypsy,” by Carter Scholz
- “Emergence,” by Gwyneth Jones
- “Calved,” by Sam J. Miller
- “Meshed,” by Rich Larson
- “Bannerless,” by Carrie Vaughn
- “The Astrakhan, the Homberg, and the Red Red Coat,” by Chaz Brenchley
- “Another Word for World,” by Ann Leckie
- “City of Ash,” by Paolo Bacigalupi
- “The Muses of Shuyedan-18,” by Indrapramit Das
- “The Audience,” by Sean McMullen
- “Consolation,” by John Kessel
- “Botanica Veneris,” by Ian McDonald
- “Rates of Change,” by James S.A. Corey
- “The Children of Gal,” by Allen M. Steele
- “Today I Am Paul,” by Martin L. Shoemaker
- “Trapping the Pleistecene,” by James Sarafin
- “Machine Learning,” by Nancy Kress
- “Silence Like Diamonds,” by John Barnes
- “Inhuman Garbage,” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- “Planet of Fear,” by Paul McAuley
- “It Takes More Than Muscles to Frown,” by Ned Beauman
- “The Daughters of John Demetrius,” by Joe Pitkin
- “Hello, Hello,” by Seanan McGuire
- “Capitalism in the 22nd Century,” by Geoff Ryman
- “Ice,” by Rich Larson
- “The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill,” by Kelly Robson
- “In Panic Town, on the Backward Moon,” by Michael F. Flynn
- “The First Gate of Logic,” by Benjamin Rosenbaum
- “Billy Tumult,” by Nick Harkaway
- “No Placeholder for You, My Love,” by Nick Wolven
- “The Game of Smash and Recovery,” by Kelly Link
- “A Stopped Clock,” by Madeline Ashby
- “Citadel of Weeping Pearls,” by Aliette de Bodard
Since I don’t read any SF short fiction magazines/e-mags, these are my source for what the editors deem the top stories published in 2015. Looks like there’ll be plenty of great reading here!
Tip the Wink 
Impressive collections. I’ve noticed my library has some of the Dozois collections on the shelf. But then, with SF stories I am so far behind I’m still reading the “old stuff” you and George and Bill and others read decades ago.
Well, I read some of it decades ago, but there’s a lot I missed. I figure these kind of collections can be read any time in any order, so you could grab one of those off the library shelf any time you feel like reading a short story, if you ever do. *snort*.
I have the first Infinity antho, and loved it, so I picked up this new one. I dunno why, but I had a hard time with it. I am so terrible, I think I had a hard time with it because it’s mostly very long short stories, nothing super quick. I like an antho to have at least a handful of super short stories. i can read two or three littles at night before bed, as a kind of warm up for the longer stories to read on another day. this new Inifity antho is nearly all long stuff.
on the other hand, Year’s Best looks fantastic. Just look at that TOC!
You’re ahead of me, since all I’ve done is check the TOC and lay out the cash. I agree I like some shorter stories in the mix.I looked at the contents of several best of books, and read this, and decided the Strahan was the way to go. But I had to have the Dozois too. The cover alone…
Meeting Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan is on my Read Real Soon stack. I’ve enjoyed many of Strahan’s anthologies. I have a couple YEAR’S BEST SF anthologies waiting in the on-deck circle. My problem with the Gardner Dozois YEAR’S BEST SF tomes is: Are there really that many “best” stories? Too much filler.
There’s a lot of short SF being published these days, between anthologies, print magazines, e-magazines, semi-prozines and other sources, including more international stuff, that there may be more good stories. I know what you mean, though. I haven’t bought a best of in a couple of years, and that was one reason, but I thought I’d try again this year.
It’s been a number of years since I’ve bought a ‘best of”. I used to enjoy them immensely but sometime in the 90s the stories began to get so sociological rather than examining the more hard science aspects of the field that I lost interest. I haven’t read one in years but maybe I should give them a try again.
That’s still an issue, Charles, there’s less good old hard SF these days.