Best Science Fiction of the Year

by Neil Clarke, Lauren Baldwin, Michael Braun, Ron Butler, Barbara Caruso

Genres: Alien Contact; Sci-fi Anthologies & Collections

Synopsis

A biological plague begins infecting artificial intelligence; a natural-born Earth woman seeking asylum on another planet finds a human society far different from her own; a food blogger’s posts chronicle a nationwide medical outbreak; trapped in a matchmaking game, a couple tries to escape from the only world they know; a janitor risks everything to rescue a “defective” tank-born baby he can raise as his own.

For decades, science fiction has compelled us to imagine futures both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it’s a warning message from a survey ship, a harrowing journey to a new world, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction feeds the imagination and delivers a lens through which we can better understand ourselves and the world around us. With The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume One, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and thirty-one of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2015.

Table of Contents:
“Introduction: A State of the Short SF Field in 2015” by Neil Clarke
“Today I Am Paul” by Martin Shoemaker
“Calved” by Sam J. Miller
“Three Bodies at Mitanni” by Seth Dickinson
“The Smog Society” by Chen Quifan
“In Blue Lily’s Wake” by Aliette de Bodard
“Hello, Hello” by Seanan McGuire
“Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfiang
“Capitalism in the 22nd Century” by Geoff Ryman
“Hold-Time Violations” by John Chu
“Wild Honey” by Paul McAuley
“So Much Cooking” by Naomi Kritzer
“Bannerless” by Carrie Vaughn
“Another Word for World” by Ann Leckie
“The Cold Inequalities” by Yoon Ha Lee
“Iron Pegasus” by Brenda Cooper
“The Audience” by Sean McMullen
“Empty” by Robert Reed
“Gypsy” by Carter Scholz
“Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” by Taiyo Fujii
“Damage” by David D. Levine
“The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss” by David Brin
“No Placeholder for You, My Love” by Nick Wolven
“Outsider” by An Owomeyla
“The Gods Have Not Died in Vain” by Ken Liu
“Cocoons” by Nancy Kress
“Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World” by Caroline M. Yoachim
“Two-Year Man” by Kelly Robson
“Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer
“Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan” by Ian McDonald
“Meshed” by Rich Larson
“A Murmuration” by Alastair Reynolds
2015 Recommended Reading List

Release date: April 4, 2017

Publisher: Night Shade

Print pages: 616

Sample

From Hugo Award-winning editor Neil Clarke, the best science fiction stories of the year are collected in a single hardcover volume.

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more—a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, a yearly anthology compiled by Hugo and World Fantasy Award–winning editor Neil Clarke, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Clarke, publisher and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed and award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year’s writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome “sensawunda” that the genre has to offer.