Year's Best Science Fiction, 18th Annual (ed. Gardner Dozois)

As with any collection, I liked some of these stories (deemed the best of 2000) better than others. Some just seemed to go on pointlessly (e.g. Cook & Hogan's Oracle Harvest). Others I just didn't quite get (e.g. Stross's Antibodies, though I usually like Stross). Some were entertaining (e.g. Fintushel's Milo & Sylvie) and some were very moving (e.g. Due's Patient Zero). I also got ideas for novels to put on my list!

Watch Your Back (Donald Westlake)

An especially fine example of a Dortmunder comic crime novel. A pompous and wealthy financier is at Club Med hiding out from his ex-wives and their lawyers, leaving his New York apartment empty and vulnerable to Dortmunder's crew. Meantime, some Mob-connected guys have their talons into the OJ, where the crew meets, so they decide to do something about that also. Everything goes south, of course, in the most unexpected ways. Quite a ride!

Coyote (Allen Steele)

A relatively recent (2002) example of a classic SF theme: pioneers carving out a foothold on an alien planet. The kicker is that they stole the ship, through a conspiracy under the leadership of its captain, to allow political prisoners to escape a brutal, tyrannical regime. The colony seems surprisingly poorly equipped (the conspiracy didn't affect the planning, only the individuals who got to come along). Colonists made remarkably irrational decisions, poorly justified. What responsible adult lets a bunch of teens sneak off with vital supplies? Practically nobody seems concerned about irreplaceable things like ammunition or medicines. So, though I enjoyed it overall, it had significant flaws that detracted from it's success.

Eight of Swords (David Skibbens)

I very much enjoyed this mystery with an unusual and likeable protagonist. For 30 years he's bee underground, having faked his death and living under various false identities; he doesn't spell out details, but if either the police or his former 50s revolutionary comerades knew he was alive he sous be imprison or dead. He is making a living as a Tarot reader on the street in Berkeley (the cards don't seem to care that he doesn't really believe on them) when a young woman stops for a reading and is promptly kidnapped. Feeling responsible for not warning her of the dangers shown in the cards and under suspicion in her disappearance, he begins calling in favors to solve the crime. In the process, he confronts his past and himself.

Djibouti (Elmore Leonard)

A thriller centered on an American woman making a documentary about Somali pirates, who gets ties up in an al Quaeda plot to blow up a ship loaded with liquified natural gas. One man in particular, an African American who turns to Islam and terrorism in prison because it gives him a chance to shoot people and blow things up, becomes her nemesis, and the last part of the book is about trying to find him before he manages to find her and kill her. The dialogue is excellent and the characters real and intriguing, but I couldn't really get into a sense of danger. Perhaps this is because I read it as an e-book, on a tiny screen. I still don't know how this affects my response to a story.

Orbit (John Nance)

The lucky man who wins a lottery to ride along on a four-day low-orbit commercial space flight deems it not so lucky when a micrometeorite kills the flight commander and leaves him trapped in orbit with no communications with the ground and no chance of returning. He begins recording his thoughts on a laptop, expecting they might be found decades later; he doesn't know what he types is being picked up in real-time and broadcast around the world. Humanity gets caught up in his story, and it has powerful influences on everyone. The end is rather unconvincing, but I found the story gripping and struggled with him as he tried to figure out how to live his last days.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave (Written by Himself)

A beautifully engaging and compelling story of the experience of slavery, written by one of the famous spokespersons of the abolitionist movement. He speaks eloquently of the physical hardships, and also the soul-crushing effects on both slaves and masters, and the yearning of people to be free. A good choice for Black History Month.

Dog On It (Spencer Quinn)

I enjoyed this mystery, which is fairly standard except for being narrated by the detective's dog. The author makes being in the dog's head quite convincing, as when he loses the thread of a human conversation because he noticed something moving under a bush that needed investigating, or had an itch that needed scratching, or caught scent of a discarded burned hot dog that needed eating (and then developed an upset stomache ache). the story and the characters were plausible, and the whole romp was fun.

For Better, For Murder (Lisa Bork)

A friendly, entertaining murder mystery that includes a romance, but (as opposed to the last book I read) is more mystery than romance. Jolene, trying to keep her sports car business going in a well-to-do Finger Lakes town, finds a body in her showroom, and has to face her not-quite-ex husband who is a police detective. She becomes a suspect, along with her mentally ill sister who has run off from a state institution. The mystery was intriguing, the characters and setting well-drawn, the action and dialogue convincing. It's not great literature, but it is a fun read.