I wanted to get a taste of what's being published in short sf/f these days because I mostly read novels. This seemed like a good place to start and it was an interesting, if lengthy read. I have to give due credit to Jonathan Strahan, who must have read a few thousand stories last year to whittle it down to these. They're virtually all actual short stories, rather than novelettes or novellas, which allows the editor to offer a really diverse selection, from fairy tales to hard sf and I got to sample a great many authors I'd not run across before. Some of my favorites were by Kelly Barnhill, Linda Nagata, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Yoon Ha Lee, Suzanne Palmer, Greg Egan, Rich Larson, and Mary Robinette Kowal. There were a few stories I simply didn't enjoy, which is unsurprising, and only one I couldn't finish, which is actually very surprising given how many there are here.

As with any collection by Jonathan Strahan, the stories are top notch. There were a couple that I had already read, but I enjoyed re-reading them. I am not a big fan of fantasy, but I even enjoyed the fantasy stories here. If you are a fan of sci-fi or fantasy or both, this is a must read!

What I liked most about this anthology is the variety of tales in it. The editor has selected a story about robots trying to win a war that no one thinks is winnable, and a story about a psychiatrist with a patient who might be a time traveler from a thousand years ago. In another story, set in the near future, it's damned hard to find a job or keep it once you find it.

You'll notice that all these stories I selected were sci-fi tales. I thought the fantasy selections were good but outstanding, which the sci-fi pieces took me to weirder places than the fantasy pieces did. One fantasy tale that I did enjoy was "The Worshipful Society of Glovers," by Mary Robinette Kowal. In this story an apprentice who makes magic gloves has a series of bad luck failures and losses, and the story ends on a sour note. I liked the magic and felt awful for the apprentice and his miserable circumstances; the author had heart-hooks in me the whole say.

I am confident that you will find some stories that you will like, in this anthology. Onward, and keep reading!

Good, but not as good as other years. It felt like some stories were chosen just to meet genre quotas. However, most of the authors with Indian and East Asian last names were dynamite storytellers.

I am only just reading through this collection now in 2021 and am absolutley amazed how right on the button of time so many of the stories seem. Not finished with all the stories yet but have check-marked almost half of the ones already read as very much worth revisiting some time later in the future. Will leave the hard-core analytical reviews to other, but I like many of these stories for their thoughtful and timely approach reflected in today's horrible current events.

in an anthology, not everything will appeal to every reader. I was however happy to find that most of the stories appealed to this reader. Well done.

Volume 12 of the Best Sciece /fiction and Fantasy of the Year (2018) has got to be the worst slugfest of a book I’ve ever read.

Majority of the book’s stories were incomplete endings, lots of talking and not a lot of action. Most of the fantasy stories were so flowered and self-absorbed I had to skip a large portion of them.

The story with the dragon in his castle and everyone who ventures to get his gold dies. These adventurers want to try. It runs along pretty good until everyone dies except the narrator. How convenient.

Another about a woman murdered who was in a freak show, who was suffering from a disease that turns her tree-like. A hundred years later her descendent tries to figure out who murdered her as the actual “murderer” was not even there. Near the end, the story ends incompletely. Did the husband do it or not? Undecided. Annoying.

Took me months to slog through this waste of Kindle energy. Don’t bother!

My only criticism is in the length. An anthology of this quality should include a minimum of a thousand pages, or better, two thousand.

Appalling selection of bin ends. Without structure or merit almost every one. Two brighter elements but the rest deserves unpublished and certainly not as an anthology with such a title.

Canon fodder...sic.

Boa leitura, bons autores