In my mind I think of the 80's as a really good time for science fiction so I found myself pretty disappointed with the ten stories chosen by the editor to represent the best of 1983 (The collection is assembled in 1984 with 1983 stories). There were only two stories to have my attention: "Homefaring" by Robert Silverberg and "The Harvest of Wolves" by Mary Gentle. I'd read Gentle's story a long time ago - short but well done, and memorable. The Silverberg story answers that timeless question of the far future: What if giant lobsters inherited the earth? Much better than it sounds! Greg Bear's short story "Blood Music" opens the collection. I had read it when it was new, but my memory of it was better than the story strikes me now. It was innovative for the time it was written. A couple stories in here are pretty poor. I'd avoid this collection, except that the novella "Homefaring" is such a good story and it was Nebula nominated as well. A 4-5 star gem amongst the dreck. sigh. ( )

Like the 1983 volume, which I read a few months ago, this anthology is a decidedly mixed bag. I'm coming to the conclusion that either the editor of this series has rather different standards than I do for what constitutes the world's best stories, or else the 1980s were a worse decade for science fiction than I remember them being. Which is entirely possible; I was 13 in 1984, and didn't exactly have highly developed tastes. Still, there's just enough good stuff here to make it worth a look.

Some brief comments on the individual stories:

"Blood Music" by Greg Bear: A scientist injects himself with intelligent microbes that begin to change him from the inside. It's an interesting, if massively implausible, idea, and the story's ending has some impact, but it's marred by way too much clunky technobabble at the beginning and a storyline that feels far too compressed. Bear later expanded it into a novel, which I read a few years ago. I remember thinking that, while also massively implausible, it was considerably more entertaining than the other novels of his I'd read. That's not necessarily saying all that much, though. Greg Bear is one of those authors whose stuff I keep thinking I should like and then inevitably feel disappointed by.

"Potential" by Isaac Asimov: A pair of scientists investigate a teenage boy who possesses a gene sequence that might make him telepathic. More clunky dialog here, and a not terribly successful twist ending. Definitely not one of Asimov's more memorable stories.

"Knight of Shallows" by Rand B. Lee: A man is sent into parallel realities to track down a version of himself who is murdering other versions of himself. Now, this one I liked. It's a weird and messy little story, but it's interesting, and it makes the parallel worlds concept feel fresher than it really is -- or was, even in 1984.

"Spending A Day at the Lottery Fair" by Frederik Pohl: A nicely chilling little story about a future in which America has introduced a novel form of population control that's fun for all the family... until it's not.

"In the Face of My Enemy" by Joseph H. Delany: A woman who supposedly has some kind of professional skills, but exhibits absolutely no competence or personality whatsoever sets out on some kind of planetary survey with her assigned bodyguard, a virile manly man, who is also immortal and has special superhuman abilities, and knows everything about everything, and solves all the planet's mysteries at a glance while she looks on admiringly, constantly asks him what they should do next, and, at one point, breaks down sobbing. I swear, I had to check the cover of the book again to make sure I hadn't picked up The 1944 Annual World's Best SF by accident.

"The Nanny" by Thomas Wylde: The last survivor of humanity is headed for Alpha Centauri with a cargo of human genetic material, but something goes wrong on the way. A decently written, slightly dark take on a familiar idea with a an effective ending that's marred a bit by the fact that the last adult survivor of humanity too often comes across as an idiot who has trouble remembering what he's even supposed to be doing.

"The Leaves of October" by Don Sakers: An alien tree attempts to make contact with humans who have trouble realizing it's sentient. I like the attempt to portray an alien POV, but there's a tiny bit too much of a not-all-that-subtle New Agey eco-hippie flavor here for my taste.

"As Time Goes By" by Tanith Lee: A well-written and interestingly ambiguous tale of a space pirate, a beautiful woman, and a time travel paradox... maybe. I'm not sure quite what to make of this, in the end, but it was an intriguing, atmospheric read.

"The Harvest of Wolves" by Mary Gentle: This one's just a brief little nugget of near-future dystopia. Depressingly, it feels at least as relevant today as it was in the eighties, possibly more so, and there's a nice little sting to the ending, but there's really not very much story meat on its social-commentary bones.

"Homefaring" by Robert Silverberg: A man's consciousness travels forward some unspecified but immense period of time, and he finds himself sharing a body with a sentient lobster. This probably sounds ridiculous, but for my money it's by far the best story in the book, or at least the most engrossing. It's smoothly and intelligently written, and does a good job of conjuring up that sense of wonder and awakened curiosity that SF at its best does so well. And for all that he's sharing a brain with lobster, the main character is the most believably human of any to be found here. ( )

This is a decent collection of Science Fiction short stories. I don't know if I'd really refer to them as the World's Best, though. I guess that's subjective.

The first story, "Blood Music" was a rather shocking and slightly stomach-turning. The concept of injecting self-replicating intelligent microbes into one's blood has some far-reaching implications. What will they decide to do to you?

The most fascinating, yet also the most confusing (to me, at least) was "Knight of Shallows." Roger is told by a mysterious corporation that an alternate Roger from another 'potential timeline' is going about murdering other Rogers in lots of other timelines. This corporation commissions this Roger (dubbed 'Roger Prime') to track the murdering 'Roger Rogue' and try to capture him. The timelines and multiple Rogers were a little hard to keep track of, as well as the time-jumping. I had to read the ending of this story a couple of times and I'm still not sure I understand it as the author intended it. Fascinating concept, though.

"The Leaves of October" is a heartbreaking tale of a sentient tree from another planet who may hold the fate of the world in it's...um...branches. The concept is familiar: sentient extra-terrestrials decide humanity is too dangerous, war-mongering, and insane; they must be completely wiped out, however; the particular extra-terrestrial involved, the tree, has such an unique and compelling voice that it seems singularly distinct.

The remaining tales in this collection were, like I said earlier, decent. "As Time Goes By" started well, ended poorly. "In the Face of My Enemy" was rather long for a short story, and the payoff at the end not really worth it. In fact, now that I think about it, the other stories all can be described as "interesting concept, decent beginning, disappointing ending." ( )

This is truly a great collection of science fiction, and contains one of the most chilling stories I've ever read, titled "A Day At The Lottery Fair". Well worth picking up or borrowing.