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A review by bookish_sabrina
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 by John Joseph Adams, Charles Yu
2.0
I feel like I just don't get on with Charles Yu's taste in SFF. I should have known from the overwrought introduction, written in the form of a dialogue between Yu himself and two time travelers who help him finalize the collection and suss out the true purpose of the SFF genres. It was not the kind of meta, self-aware fiction I enjoy, meaning that it went out of its way to make a rather unoriginal point that could have been better expressed with much less effort and fewer words.
The use of meta-narratives and unique narrative structure is also present in many of the stories he chose to feature in the collection. While sometimes they were interesting, more often than not I felt like the stories needed to be expanded and read like underbaked drafts. The three stories I really liked out of the twenty were by Alexander Weinstein, Catherynne M Valente, and N.K. Jemisin, respectively. While I had hoped to find some new authors to explore further after reading this collection, it turns out the three I enjoyed most were by authors I've already read. Sort of a failed experiment on my end. I hope the next one of these I read is better.
The use of meta-narratives and unique narrative structure is also present in many of the stories he chose to feature in the collection. While sometimes they were interesting, more often than not I felt like the stories needed to be expanded and read like underbaked drafts. The three stories I really liked out of the twenty were by Alexander Weinstein, Catherynne M Valente, and N.K. Jemisin, respectively. While I had hoped to find some new authors to explore further after reading this collection, it turns out the three I enjoyed most were by authors I've already read. Sort of a failed experiment on my end. I hope the next one of these I read is better.