I finished reading Karen Haber & Jonathan Strahan’s SCIENCE FICTION: BEST OF 2003, and it was a good book with a lot of worthwhile fiction. Easily the best story in it was Jeffrey Ford’s outstanding novelette “The Empire of Ice Cream.” Its evocation of the lonely, delicate life of a synesthete, his search for friendship, and his finding it in the form of a fellow synesthete whom he can only contact through a synesthetic-derived hallucination, are absolutely sparkling. I will definitely buy a copy of Ford’s World Fantasy winning collection THE FANTASY WRITER’S ASSISTANT as soon as possible.

Other fine stories were

> Paolo Bacigalupi’s futuristic fairy tale “The Fluted Girl”

> David D. Levine’s “The Take of the Golden Eagle,” which bore strong resemblance to a Cordwainer Smith tale

> Stephen Baxter’s time paradox tale “The Chop Line”

> Lucius Shepard’‘s Ground Zero ghost story “Only Partly Here”

Ironically, some stories by the most famous names were slightly weaker than those mentioned above:

> Ursula K Le Guin’s story “Confusions of Uni,” from her collection CHANGING PLANES

> Neil Gaiman’s overly-slick Sherlockania story “A Study in Emerald,” which never really delved into its fascinating premise

> James Patrick Kelly’s “Bernardo’s House”

> Howard Waldrop’s Calling Your Name,” which dropped a lot of popular culture names and memories without doing much with them.

Overall, the book was better than average, and recommended reading.