It’s always seemed to me that John Joseph Adams’s
Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy series, now in its sixth volume, has served a somewhat different if equally important purpose than the more traditional year’s best volumes which have been a staple of SF publishing for more than 70 years. While those volumes have historically been SF’s way of presenting itself
to itself (always with the hopes of drawing a broader readership among those who simply want to check in on SF from time to time), Adams’s annual volumes are part of the “Best American” series of focused anthologies which began with
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The Midnight Sky is in UK cinemas and on Netflix from 23 December 2020.
George Clooneyâs latest directorial outing, released just before this yearâs pandemic-pulverised Christmas, isnât exactly ringing with good cheer. An earnest, melancholy piece of survivor sci-fi about the triumph of the human spirit in a dystopian Arctic wasteland, itâs yet another entry in the burgeoning âDoomed Earthâ genre. But unlike The Day After Tomorrow (2004) or Interstellar (2014), it dodges elaborate CGI recreations of Earthâs destruction or event horizons, focusing on one manâs slow, redemptive journey to save the returning spaceship that is humanityâs last hope.