A very good collection with a consistently high standard of content.

Favourites for me were the stories by Liz Williams, AN Myers, Martin Sketchley and David Cullen. ( )

This is the sixth in thie series, and the first that I have come across. One would expect it to be cutting-edge technologically, literate, entertaining and with sufficient twists and surprises to hold the reader's attention, and most of the stories succeed on these accounts.

I am rather overdosed at this point on clanking cyborgs, hybrids, blood-soaked implants, bots, replicants and various AI-based entities (T. H. Dray's "Henrietta", Peter Sutton's "The Stone of Sorrow:, Martin Westlake's "Going Home", Michael Crouch's "The Trip", Russell Hemmell's "The Opaque Mirror of Your Face", and others). The ethical issues and dilemmas are challenging, no doubt, though at this point many of them are overdone and overexposed to the point of bring trite. Most of the stories are well-crafted and concise; one or two are somewhat overlong and predictable. I was not familiar ahead of time with any of the authors, but that is not surprising, I suppose, as I am far from being a dedicated SF devotee.

Paul Cornell's "Distribution" is a wonderfully off-kilter post-apocalyptic exploration of personhood, ethics, socialization and evil, with a surprisingly Christian twist.

As in Liz Williams' "Stealthcare", there is a deep thread of melancholy and unease that runs through so many of these.

Same goes for David Cullen's "Down and Out Under the Tannhauser Gate", an unsettling tale with its echoes (some of which I had to google) of Wagner, the Grail legends, George Orwell, Aubrey Beardsley and "Blader Runner".

There are threads of violence, gore and grisly disgust for fleshly and bodily functions (Martin Sktechley's "Bloodbirds", A. N. Myers' "Okamoto's Lens", Ryan Vance's "Love in the Age of Operator Errors", and Leo X. Robertson's semi-humorous "Bar Hopping for Astronauts"

There is some rather bland and predictable time-bending (Keith Brooke & Eric Brown's "Me Two", Gary Couzens' "The End of all our Exploring").

Some near-future solipsistic paranoia, in Aliya Whiteley's "More Sea Creature to See".

Emma Levin's "History of Food Additives" provides some gentle but bitter humour.

Further on: David Cleden's "How Does My Garden Grow", Teika Marija Smits, "Girls' Night Out" and Nick Wood's "A Pall of Moondust" are all brief, well-crafted and striking.

Overall, this is a well-selected and satisfying collection. ( )

This is another wonderful selection of British Science Fiction. I love the breadth and depth of the stories. I found the first story hard to get into, but sailed through the next one. There is an amazing variety of tales. Something for everyone. I was especially grateful for the author bios provided at the end which allow me to find more by my favorites. I'm grateful to LibraryThing from whom I won an advance copy of this fine book in exchange for my honest review. I was greatly entertained! ( )

I'm not quite as impressed with this installment as I was with the 2019 edition. Nevertheless, this is, on the whole, good solid work. It's interesting (to me, anyway) that more of these stories have a dark mood than did BBSF '19. That may be part of why I was a little underwhelmed.

I'm sure that it says more about my discernment than about the quality of the writing, but I was baffled by two or three of the stories. I was left wondering what exactly had happened.

On the other hand, the ones I enjoyed the most were: "Down and out under the Tannhauser gate", "Me two" (amazingly imaginative and original), "Bloodbirds" (one of the darker stories), "Stone of sorrow" (heart-breakingly sad), and "Henrietta".

The only story that I could describe as light-hearted is "A history of food additives in 22nd century Britain". All the rest ranged from dark to depressing. No doubt this reflects the atmosphere in which the stories were written.

A workman-like collection of short stories. As usual, some I enjoyed more than others, but there were none I actively disliked. A good showcase.