The first thing that appealed to me about this substantial six hundred page collection of science fiction stories is that it is ensconced in a well-bound book with an easy to read font. Much as I enjoyed the late Gardner Dozois’s best of the year volumes, they were often difficult to read because of the miniscule print. Speaking of Dozois, Clarke follows his practice of offering in the introduction a helpful synopsis of the year in science fiction publishing.

This volume includes Clarke’s picks of the best stories published in 2021. This was in the midst of the pandemic, of course, and some of the stories deal with this theme. Several others focus on artificial intelligence, another hot topic in recent years.

One of my favorite stories is “Vaccine Season” by Hannu Rajaniemi, in which a young man travels to a remote island to try to convince his traditional grandfather to get vaccinated against the current deadly plagues. It is a story focused on character but also on its near-future predictions, and its overall excellence served as a reminder of why I delve into anthologies like this: to find such brilliant gems. Another excellent story is “Hanai” by Gregory Norman Bossert; Hawaii has become an independent nation, and the last member of an all-but-extinct alien race goes there to perform his dying dance. “A Rocket for Demetrios” by Ray Nayler proposes a fascinating alternate history in which the United States discovered an alien spacecraft just before World War II and used its technology to achieve global dominance. And “Bots of the Lost Ark” by Suzanne Palmer is a light-hearted tale of sentient robots aboard an intergalactic spacecraft that thwart evil and save the resident humans.

As I said, several of the stories deal with AI. In fact, the first three stories in the book, “Muallim” by Ray Nayler, “Dark Waters Still Flow” by Alice Towey, and “Proof by Induction” by Jose Pablo Iriarte all consider this subject in interesting ways. One of the book’s strengths is its inclusion of stories by international authors, including some translated from Chinese by well-know authors from China.

When I approach a book like this, I realize that Clarke’s tastes in fiction will not precisely match my own and that I will undoubtedly appreciate some stories more than others – and so it has come to pass. Overall, though, it is a strong selection; there were only a few tales that I couldn’t get into and didn’t finish. That’s a good percentage for a lengthy collection like this. Besides, your tastes may not match mine. Who knows? The ones I couldn’t wrap my mind around might turn out to be among your favorites. Overall the stories are absorbing and strong, and there’s enough variety so that you’re bound to find some that will hit you just right and will cause you to exclaim: “Yes, that’s it. This is why I read science fiction.”