 I'm going to talk about the year's best SF series in particular and the anthology work of David G. Hartwell in general, so stay with me. On my last monthly update I had ordered this from online because it has Story of Your Life by Ted Chang that the movie Arrival is based on. And I read the whole book, that story was good, it was better than the movie. If you'll remember my review of the movie wasn't exactly positive. And I read the rest of the book, it was good, yeah there was good stuff in here. There was only one story that I disliked enough for me to not finish it and that was Rules of Engagement by Michael Flynn. I didn't like the writing style, it was too choppy for me, I couldn't follow really what was going on. When I encountered something like that, I just dropped it. Story of Your Life was okay but I didn't think it was the strongest one in the book. I liked Dance to Strange Musics by Gregory Benford and The Allies by Mark S. Justin. This story was not particularly well written, in fact the writing style was kind of clumsy but the story itself, the plot was very memorable, I'll never really forget it. And the story by Dominic Green called That Thing Over There, yeah I like this one too. I thought it was very reminiscent of Mountains of Madness by Lovecraft, subject matter not writing style. And I also appreciated This Side of Independence by Rob Chilson, this is a double meaning it also refers to the town of Independence, Missouri. So there was some good stuff in here, not my favorite anthology but there was some good strong stuff in here. I want to talk about the year's best SF series, which was started by David G. Hartwell, this is the first volume from 1996. This is one of my problems with the series is that there's not a year number on every cover and there should be, because my question is always, it's the year's best volume six but what year? He never bothered to put the year on there, that's my one real complaint. This first volume has some great stuff in it, in particular Microbe by Joan Slanjewski, she's one of my favorite authors, Robert Sheckley, anything by Robert Sheckley is great. This is Nancy Kress, great names here. But the one that has stuck with me most over the years, the one that I had the greatest emotional reaction to, in fact it's one of the most emotional stories I've ever read was The Ziggurat by Gene Wolfe, it's the story that made me remember his name. This is hard to describe, in some ways a very ugly story. Some of the harshest misogyny I've ever seen, I've only come to realize recently in reading about the story that there are a number of different ways to read the story, literally and psychologically, which give you different meanings. The story that I recommend, despite the severity of the subject matter, it's so well written, it's terrifying and very memorable. But really I wanted to talk about how much I like David G. Hartwell's taste. I've bought a number of his anthologies over the years, particularly the year's best SF series, these are not all the ones I have, I'm sure I have others in my vast collection somewhere, if you're looking closely you'll notice here that I have two copies of Volume 9, which I was not aware of. Right off the bat there's Octavia Butler, Joe Haldeman, Michael Swanwick, and John Varley, always names worth noticing when they're on a list, I don't believe I've read this volume, in fact I'm sure I haven't. David G. Hartwell is a name that I've always sought out when I look for anthologies because I know that I like the stories in there because I appreciate his taste and I mesh with his taste and mesh with mine so well. He's done a great bit more than just the year's best SF series, I've had this on my shelf for years, World Treasury of Science Fiction, with a giant collection of stories from authors from different times and different parts of the world. He's written more than one encyclopedia of science fiction and I've had a couple of those go through my collection at one point or another, this is a book that I've been wanting to read for some time, Hard SF is what I like, near the end of his life he died a few years ago, he was co-editing his collections with Catherine Kramer and this is another one of my favorites, these are great science fiction stories from the hundred years previous to the publication of this book, great stuff, this was a 1997 collection. I recommend all of these books you see here and anytime you see David G. Hartwell's name I predict that you'll like his work, if you taste or anything like mine and if you've been watching me all these years then I think they are, so look for David G. Hartwell. Please remember to press that like button, it helps my videos get seen and then subscribe so you can come back next time. I do science fiction book, TV and movie reviews all the time and please consider becoming a patron, there's a link in the description below.