The Year's Best Science Fiction: 16th Annual Collection
Language: English
Pages: 885
ISBN: 2:00336855
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The past through tomorrow are boldly imagined and reinvented in the twenty-five stories collected in this showcase anthology. Many of the field's finest practitioners are represented here, along with stories from promising newcomers.
A useful list of honorable mentions and Dozois's insightful summation of the year in sf round out this anthology, making it indispensable for anyone interested in SF today.
Contents:
• Oceanic by Greg Egan
• Approaching Perimelasma by Geoffrey A. Landis
• Craphound by Cory Doctorow
• Jedella Ghost by Tanith Lee
• Taklamakan by Bruce Sterling
• The Island of the Immortals by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Sea Change, With Monsters by Paul J. McAuley
• Divided by Infinity by Robert Charles Wilson
• Us by Howard Waldrop
• The Days of Solomon Gursky by Ian McDonald
• The Cuckoo’s Boys by Robert Reed
• The Halfway House at the Heart of Darkness by William Browning Spencer
• The Very Pulse of the Machine by Michael Swanwick
• Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang
• Voivodoi by Liz Williams
• Saddlepoint: Roughneck by Stephen Baxter
• This Side of Independence by Rob Chilson
• Unborn Again by Chris Lawson
• Grist by Tony Daniel
• La Cenerentola by Gwyneth Jones
• Down in the Dark by William Barton
• Free in Asveroth by Jim Grimsley
• The Dancing Floor by Cherry Wilder
• The Summer Isles by Ian R. MacLeod
Originally published 1999 by St. Martin's Griffin.
different from you and me. What I was really curious about was the fact that none of this had happened. The Yendians were apparently so uninterested in their chance to be immortal that there was scarcely anything about it in the library. But I could see, as the boat drew close to the town, that the travel agent had been a bit disingenuous. There had been hotels here—big ones, six or eight stories. They were all visibly derelict, signs askew, windows boarded or blank. The boatman, a shy young
comes the tea. Will you play that song again? It was Mother’s favorite. Do you think it could be that simple? That I became a priest because of that hymn? Are you asking me? Just play the music and let me drink my tea. I think the waiter wants us out of here. “Do you mind if I mop up around you?” the waiter said. “I’ll be done soon.” “Take your time, as long as you don’t mind me working.” “I don’t mind.” Andre listened to mournful oboe and watched as the waiter sloshed water across the
landers, some of them going all the way back to the 1970s, you find scattered around the surface of Mars. Beyond it, the flat, empty surface of the Waxsea stretched away like an infinite table, until it was lost in low, dark red mist. Behind us, the delicately folded face of the Terra Noursae terminal escarpment towered like cornflower blue curtains, mostly exposed water ice, the beach we stood on cracked icebits strung through with ropes of peach-colored polymer and black strands of asphalt.
of like a Quonset hut open on both ends, docked to a charging mast, and got out. I always take a quick look up when I roll out through the airlock door, because you can see the last bits of your depress fire boiling around under the ceiling, like a misty, glowing blue cloud. Out one end of the garage, I could see somebody’d strung a brand new UN flag on the base’s pole, woven plastic fabric rolling gently in the breeze. Every now and again, it’d stretch out a bit so you could see the white lines
gauntleted hands. I’ve been left alone—so perhaps they’re expecting this of me; a bid at suicide. But then wouldn’t I have been killed already? I throw the bottle across the room with my clumsy left hand. Somehow, it actually hits the frieze, but it bounces off with a dull clunk, raining tablets. Weeping, I scuttle across the floor, picking them up, and collapse on my huge bed. Beyond my windows, a barge sounds its horn. Lozenges of light ripple and dance with the nymphs on the ceiling. I’d