{"id":740,"date":"2011-07-30T19:46:59","date_gmt":"2011-07-30T23:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pappp.net\/?p=740"},"modified":"2011-08-05T21:26:46","modified_gmt":"2011-08-06T01:26:46","slug":"just-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/?p=740","title":{"rendered":"Just read."},"content":{"rendered":"

I just snapped out of one of those particularly idyllic afternoons, when I finished the remainder of this year’s Jonathan Strahan edited “The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year”<\/a> after I put it down a couple months ago and forgot about it. This was complimented with kwxx<\/a> stream bringing me ridiculous but relaxing island pop. I hadn’t spent an afternoon just reading in too long. <\/p>\n

I’ve picked up every previous volume<\/a> of the collection and am going to post up a couple quick notes like I did for previous volumes in the preceding link, to give credit where due and make it so I can find them later.
\n
\nThere were of course the expected “Authors filling their niche” pieces, like Cory Doctrow’s The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening<\/a>(which may actually be the perfect archetype for his writing) and James P. Kelly\u2019s \u201cPlus or Minus<\/a>\u201d, which I thought was a continuation of last year’s “Going Deep<\/a>” until I looked up character names. Setting the predictable selections aside, the stories this year tend a bit more toward historical fantasy and heavy handed feminism than in previous volumes… and it isn’t really a problem. <\/p>\n

The last piece, Rachel Swirsky’s The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window”<\/a> is definitely an example of the historical and feminist bent of the volume, and definitely a standout. It reminds me of the ancestral spirit system of Brian Aldiss’ Helliconia (an old favorite), but is solely an exploration of that concept. <\/p>\n

That said, my favorite was Robert Reed’s Novealla “Alone” (How is one supposed to punctuate a Novella title?), which has absolutely extraordinary scale for its 45 pages and a fascinatingly strange protagonist(?)… and not much more can be said about it without detracting from the experience. <\/p>\n

I’m always a fan of Kij Johnson<\/a>, and one of her stories has been included in this collection every year. This year’s “Names for Water” is a bit of a departure from her usual style, but manages to be remarkable in three pages. I think my favorite of hers still may be The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles<\/a>, which is pure historical fiction… which is just to say she is nothing if not versatile. <\/p>\n

This years’s collection was, if anything, more consistent than previous volumes, with fewer losers and just as many pieces that make one just pause and admire. There is a good reason I keep getting this one year after year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just snapped out of one of those particularly idyllic afternoons, when I finished the remainder of this year’s Jonathan Strahan edited “The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year” after I put it down a couple months ago … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1,15,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-general","category-literature","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}