David G. Hartwell edits an iteration of this anthology every year, and the fifth volume just floated to the surface. This is cause for happiness: The previous four have been uniformly excellent. He picks good 'uns, writers who can actually write. This is a rare, strange, and wonderful thing in SF. I'm damned if I'm going to wade through all that amateurish crap in the magazines if the redoubtable David G. Hartwell is willing to do the wading for such a modest fee.

Better yet, most of it's usually by writers I haven't heard of. That means very little since I'm so out of touch, but for me it's cool: This year the only ones I've heard of are Kim Stanley Robinson (hrm, bad omen), Robert Reed (bummer; he sucks), Brian Aldiss, and Barry N. Malzberg. Terry Bisson and Greg Egan sound vaguely familiar. The other fifteen or so are obscure to me.