The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection by Gardner Dozois Read Free Book Online

(Viking Press), by Lev Grossman; Chasing the Dragon (Pyr), by Justina Robson; The Steel Remains (Ballantine Books), by Richard K. Morgan; The Price of Spring (Tor Fantasy), by Daniel Abraham; The Red Tree (Roc Trade), by Caitlin R. Kiernan; Green (Tor Books), by Jay Lake; The Knights of the Cornerstone (Ace Books), by James P. Blaylock; Buyout (Del Rey), by Alexander Irvine; Palimpset (Bantam Spectra), by Catherynne M. Valente; Hope’s Folly (Bantam), by Linnea Sinclair; End of the Century (Pyr), by Chris Roberson; Duplicate Effort (Roc Books), by Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Diving into the Wreck (Pyr), by Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Turn Coat (Roc), by Jim Butcher; Corambis (Ace Books), by Sarah Monette; The Sharing Knife (Eos), by Lois McMaster Bujold; Buyout (Del Rey), by Alexander Irvine; Storm from the Shadows (Baen Books), by David Weber; Escape from Hell (Tor Books), by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle; Heroes of the Valley (Hyperion), by Jonathan Stroud; Bone Crossed (Ace), Patricia Briggs; Unseen Academicals (Harper), by Terry Pratchett; and Under the Dome (Scribner), by Stephen King.
    Small presses once published mostly collections and anthologies, but these days they’re active in the novel market as well. Novels issued by small presses this year, some of them among the year’s best, included: The Empress of Mars (Subterranean Press), by Kage Baker; The Hotel Under the Sand (Tachyon Publications), by Kage Baker; Lifelode (NESFA Press), by Jo Walton; The Shadow Pavillion (Night Shade Books), by Liz Williams; Madness of Flowers: A Novel of the City Imperishable (Night Shade Books), by Jay Lake; The Proteus Sails Again (Subterranean Press), by Thomas M. Disch; and Those Who Went Remain There Still (Subterranean Press), by Cherie Priest.
    The year’s first novels included: The Windup Girl (Night Shade Books), by Paolo Bacigalupi; The Manual of Detection (Penguin Group), by Jedediah Berry; Lamentation (Tor Books), by Ken Scholes; Harbinger (Fairwood Press), by Jack Skillingstead; Prospero Lost (Tor Books), by L. Jagi Lamplighter; Total Oblivion, More or Less (Ballantine Spectra), by Alan DeNiro; and The Adamantine Palace (Gollancz), by Stephen Deas. Of these, The Windup Girl got by far the best notices, with several critics calling it not only the best first novel of the year but the best science fiction novel of the year, period.
    Associational novels by people connected with the science fiction and fantasy fields included: Four Freedoms (HarperCollins), by John Crowley; The Dead Man’s Brother (Hard Case Crime), by Roger Zelazny; Mariposa (Vanguard Press), by Greg Bear; The Asylum Prophecies (Leisure Books), by Daniel Keyes; and Chronic City (Doubleday), by Jonathan Lethem. Ventures into the genre, or at least the ambiguous fringes of it, by well-known mainstream authors, included: Inherent Vice (Penguin Press), by Thomas Pynchon; The Year of the Flood (Doubleday), by Margaret Atwood; and Her Fearful Symmetry (Scribner), by Audrey Niffenegger. A surprise bestseller, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk Books), by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, has already spawned several sequels, and may launch a whole new subgenre, the literary classic/horror mash-up.
    There were again some good individual novellas published as chap-books, although perhaps nothing that really stood out. Subterranean Press published The Women of Nell Gwynne’s , by Kage Baker; The God Engines , by John Scalzi; Seven for a Secret , by Elizabeth Bear; and Alpha and Omega , by Patricia Briggs. PS Publishing brought out Starfall , by Stephen Baxter; Ars Memoriae , by Beth Bernobich; The Night Cache , by Andy Duncan; and Gilbert and Edgar on Mars , by Eric Brown. NewCon Press brought out The Push , by David Hutchinson, and Starship Fall , by Eric Brown. MonkeyBrain Books published Death of a Starship , by Jay Lake. Hadley Rille Books published The Priestess and the Slave , by Jenny Blackford.
    Novel omnibuses this year included: The Books of the Wars