Book Review: Year's Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy - Volume 4

The nice thing about short story collections is that you never waste too much time if one of them is a bit of a dud. This contains some lovely tales of madness and despair. Some are high fantasy and some innovative sci-fi.

A particular stand-out is Anuja Mitra's "Plague Year" - it's an almost joyous what-if of a pandemic tale. Similarly, Melanie Harding-Shaw's "Data Migration" brilliantly captures the blithe bureaucratese used on children to hide the terror of the world. I also enjoyed James Rowland's "Interview with Sole Refugee from the A303 Incident" which is paced beautifully.

But, sadly, there are a few too many misses among the hits. The two Selkie stories feel a little oddly matched and a few others just left me cold.

One to flick through to grab the best bits, I feel.