I recently had the opportunity to review the most recent edition in this annual series of anthologies. The Best of British Science Fiction is another collection of speculative short stories gathered together by Donna Scott. As always, she has managed to come up with a wide-ranging sampler. Some of the stories have classic science fiction tropes, like robots, aliens and space ships and others are harder to categorise. Inevitably there are some stories that link to matters of health and disease but, given that has been a global preoccupation since early 2020, it isn’t surprising that the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have fed the imagination of some of the authors.

Compared to some of the previous editions, it took me a few more stories to find a foothold. I’d say that, for my tastes, Me Two by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown was the one that first grabbed me and where I found myself caught up in following the story rather than just trying to understand what was going on. I should be careful about spoilers but I am intrigued to know how much the development of this story was influenced by being the work of (I assume) two separate authors.

Others that particularly caught my interest included Okamoto’s Lens by A N Myers (about a very special camera) and The End of All Our Exploring by Gary Couzens. All three of those are at the more science-light, mystery-heavy end of the continuum although that probably tells you more about my tastes than indicating which you might find the best pieces. As I have come to expect, this is another rewarding compendium for those who come not just for easy entertainment but to explore, discover and expand their list of authors to watch for.