The SF Site: Featured Reviews Archive

The reviews are sorted alphabetically by authors' last name -- one or more pages for each letter (plus one for Mc). All but some recent reviews are listed here. Links to those reviews appear on the Recent Feature Review Page.

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Year's Best SF 17 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
reviewed by D. Douglas Fratz
All of those who love short science fiction look forward each year to the release of the two senior annual best-of-the-year anthologies by Gardner Dozois and David G. Hartwell/Kathryn Cramer, the latter of which is now only the slightly smaller of the two. For the record, the Hartwell and Cramer volume this year has only four stories of its 24 that are also included in the Dozois -- although as usual there are many other authors who have different stories chosen for each -- and perusing both remains essential for all serious SF readers.

The Space Opera Renaissance edited by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer
reviewed by Peter D. Tillman
Peter is working his way through the David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer The Space Opera Renaissance anthology, and finding it well-done and to his taste -- it may be one of the editors best BIG review-anthology yet. Truly a doorstop at 940+ pages, with a surprisingly large number of new-to-Peter stories.

The Space Opera Renaissance edited by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer
reviewed by Stuart Carter
Before reading this anthology, Stuart thought that space opera came to be called space opera because "opera" was the equivalent of the Hollywood blockbuster from before they had Hollywood -- big, brash, wide screen entertainment full of fickle gods, exotic foreigners, passionate lovers and mighty warriors, all mashed up into stories of inspired, over-the-top mayhem and exhibitionism, and topped with bellowing divas howling like Hurricane Katrina in a ball gown.

Year's Best Fantasy 6 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
reviewed by Paul Kincaid
Judith Merril launched her Best of the Year anthology series in the late-50s, just at a time when the magazine science fiction market was collapsing. At this remove, it is difficult to tell whether that was just a coincidence, but one might suspect that part at least of her intent was a compensatory widening of what was considered science fiction. Since then the science fiction and fantasy market has somehow managed to sustain one or at most two Best of the Year anthologies.

The Hard SF Renaissance edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
This anthology is a formal follow-up to the editors' 1994 anthology, The Ascent of Wonder. The Ascent of Wonder was an historical anthology, tracing the development of science fiction by focusing on hard SF, which the editors argued "is somehow the core and center of the SF field." But by their own admission, from the 60s through the end of the 80s, hard SF was not the most fashionable part of the science fiction world. This book is an attempt to document the revival of hard SF in the 90s, and an argument that hard SF remains central to the future of science fiction. It also gives us an opportunity to examine just how much the writing of hard science fiction has changed since the New Wave of the 60s.

The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
reviewed by Alex Anderson
Alex believes this is a brilliant effort to attain the truly definitive SF anthology, by doing an anthology series. Ascent of Wonder is the second in this series. In this volume, you'll find all the greats and more -- with one notable exception. (Harlan Ellison, where are you?) 990 pages of previously published fiction worth reading from 69 names worth knowing.

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