My decision to go back and read the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthologies for years I'd previously missed continues to pay off spectacularly. There are maybe two stories in here that didn't 100% work for me, but those are among the shortest in the book, and are interesting even in their failure to completely click with me. Otherwise, the contents range from pretty good to fan-fucking-tastic, making it a terrific reading experience, as a whole.

One could probably spend a lot of time analyzing the interesting trends and patterns and repeated themes to be seen in this particular collection of stories, despite their widely varying perspectives and voices. I'm not necessarily up to doing much of that, myself, but one thing I definitely did notice is the way a surprising number of them draw on ideas from some venerable old subgenres -- especially 1950s monster movies and teen dramas, and classic kids' portal fantasies -- to do things that feel meaningful and relevant in the present day. ( )

I have a bit of a snobbery problem when it comes to books, and I've tended to turn my nose up at genre fiction. This year in particular, I've been trying to have more of an open mind about it and have read a fair bit of science fiction on my own alongside fantasy for the family read-aloud. I'm a sucker for "Best American" anthologies (I picked up two others when I bought this one recently) and this seemed like a good one to expose myself to a broader range of the genre without a huge investment in a long book or series. It also seemed like a good opportunity to see what current fiction in these genres was like (most of what I've read is 20 years old or older).

Turns out, fiction in these genres is very mixed. I dog-eared the following stories as really enjoyable or worthwhile:

- Everyone from Themis Sends Letters Home
- When They Came to Us
- Openness
- The Future is Blue

I also thought "The Venus Effect" was fairly important but annoyingly written (it's metafiction, which I like in general, but I didn't like the way the author wrote it). I enjoyed a little bit "The Story of Kao Yu" but didn't think it really belonged in this anthology.

Most of the rest of the stories were meh at best for me. A couple of them were downright bad. I screened entries for a local genre fiction contest a few years ago, and there were a few pretty solid entries and a lot of really terrible ones. Some of the stories in this collection I would not have passed along to the round of final judging even in a local contest, much less considered fit for a collection of 20 of the best stories in the two genres. This makes me feel like maybe the current state of science fiction and fantasy is pretty grim, though it's possible that the series editor and judge just have tastes or literary sensibilities very very different from mine (though I think that my snobbery lets me value quality writing even if I don't love the category of the writing).

The thing about it is that good writing transcends genre. The stories I dog-eared are all reasonably good stories that I'd be pleased to have read in any context (one appeared in The Sun, which is a literary magazine and not a science fiction magazine). The ones I didn't mention by title above seem to have been chosen specifically because of their genre and not because they represent good writing or storytelling, and this sort of pigeonholing and acceptance regardless of quality is, I suppose, what makes me feel iffy about genre fiction in general to begin with. ( )

I assume there must have been some good science fiction stories written in the USA in 2016, but they aren't in this book. ( )

i didn't care for most of these stories. the editors seemed drawn to Cute and Clever stories, and i felt there was little meat. IMO there were many stories in this year of Asimov's which were better than several of these, and that's just Asimov's. ( )

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 by John Joseph Adams is an anthology of short stories that embraces all varieties of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. It is an interesting and diverse compilation.

It opens with Head, Scales, Tongue and Tail by Leigh Bardugo a story about a young girl who falls in love with a boy that is not really human. It was probably my favorite and set my expectations high for this anthology. Another favorite of mine was Everyone from Themis Sends Letters Home by Genevieve Valentine a story about the repercussions of a world in which everyone is plugged in and what are the rights of people in that type of world.

There were a few stories I was not crazy about. For example, Welcome to the Medical Center at the Interplanetary Relay Station by Caroline M. Yoachim which is a nod to the problems of the VA and other institutions which fail miserably in carrying out their mission. It just goes to show that you can’t like everything someone else does.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy short stories and it never fails to surprise me how some authors can develop a character in thirty pages and others cannot in three hundred. This collection is well thought out and thoroughly entertaining. Some of the stories were uplifting, some thought provoking and some dark. It made for a very good mix and was a joy to read with just a few exceptions.

As a lover of both sci-fi and fantasy it was easy to like this anthology. Since the stories were so diverse I believe they will appeal to reader in both genres. Because of the diversity, I would not be at all surprised that readers of general fiction and other genres will enjoy this book.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

See more of my reviews, and author interviews, on my blog at www.thespineview.com. ( )