The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2020 Edition
Page 70
Sam J. Miller is the last in a long line of butchers, and the Nebula-Award-winning author of The Art of Starving (an NPR best of the year) and Blackfish City (a “Must Read” in Entertainment Weekly and O: The Oprah Winfrey Magazine). He lives in New York City, and at samjmiller.com.
Allison Mulvihill lives in a city big enough that she shouldn’t have to deal with all these deer eating her apple trees, married a spousal unit American enough that the Union Jack should stop popping up as her computer background, and teaches computer science enough that she should know better than to leave her screen unlocked when she walks away for more than three consecutive seconds. “Empty Box” is her first published work.
Kelly Link’s most recent story collection, Get in Trouble (Random House), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is the author of three additional collections: Stranger Things Happen (Small Beer Press), Magic for Beginners (Random House), and Pretty Monsters (Viking). The recipient of a 2018 MacArthur Fellowship, she lives in Northampton, MA, where she and her husband run Small Beer Press. They recently opened a bookstore in Easthampton, Book Moon Books.
Frances Rowat lives in Ontario with her husband, their dog, and a not-quite-startling number of cats. She was born in Canada, and while growing up spent time in England, Algeria, and Switzerland. She is currently spending nearly all of her time behind a keyboard, where she frequently gets lost in details. Her work has appeared in such venues as Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Liminal Stories, and Cossmass Infinities. She enjoys earrings, fountain pens, rain, and post-apocalyptic settings, and may be found online on Twitter @aphotic_ink or at aphotic-ink.com.
Andy Dudak’s original stories and/or translations of Chinese sci-fi have been in Analog, Apex, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Daily Science Fiction, Diabolical Plots, Interzone, F&SF, Pathlight, Science Fiction World (科幻世界), and elsewhere. His story in this volume, ‘Love in the Time of Immuno-Sharing,’ is a finalist for the Eugie Foster Award. Andy lived in China for ten years, and he believes in the healing power of Dungeons & Dragons.
Alexandra Seidel is a poet and writer of speculative fiction which leans toward horror. As Alexa Piper, she writes paranormal romance series which lean toward humor. She has a deep passion for language and storytelling, for myth, magic, and mischief. You can connect with Alexa on Twitter (@Alexa_Seidel), Facebook (www.facebook.com/AlexaSeidelWrites), and follow her latest releases on her website alexandraseidel.com.
Xia Jia (a.k.a Wang Yao) is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at Xi’an Jiaotong University. She has been publishing speculative fiction since college. Seven of her stories have won the Galaxy Award, China’s most prestigious science fiction award. In English translation, she has been published in Clarkesworld and other venues. Her first flash story written in English, “Let’s Have a Talk,” was published in Nature in 2015. Her first English collection A Summer Beyond Your Reach: Stories was published in 2020. She is also engaged in other science fiction related works, including academic research, translation, screenwriting, editing and creative writing teaching.
Nova Scotia writer Catherine MacLeod loves chai tea, television soundtracks, and overheard conversations. Her publications include short fiction in Nightmare, Black Static, On Spec, Tor.com, and several anthologies, including Fearful Symmetries and Playground of Lost Toys. Her story “Hide and Seek” won the 2016 inaugural Sunburst Award for Short Story.
Michael Swanwick has received the Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, World Fantasy and Hugo Awards, and has the pleasant distinction of having been nominated for and lost more of these same awards than any other writer. He has written ten novels, over a hundred and fifty short stories, and countless works of flash fiction. His latest novel The Iron Dragon’s Mother will be published by Tor Books in 2018. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marianne Porter.
Theodora Goss is the World Fantasy, Locus, and Rhysling Award-winning author of the Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club novels, including The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (2017), European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman (2018), and The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl (2019), as well as short story and poetry collections In the Forest of Forgetting (2006), Songs for Ophelia (2014), and Snow White Learns Witchcraft (2019). She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Crawford, Shirley Jackson, and Mythopoeic Awards, as well as on the Tiptree Award Honor List. Her work has been translated into thirteen languages. She teaches literature and writing at Boston University and in the Stonecoast MFA Program.
Shiv Ramdas is an Indian writer. His short speculative fiction has appeared in publications like Strange Horizons, Fireside, Podcastle, and others and has been nominated for the Nebula and Hugo Awards. He currently lives and works in Seattle, USA. You can find out more about him at https://shivramdas.net/ or find him tweeting as @nameshiv.
Christopher Rowe has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon, and Japanese Seiun literary awards. He is the author of one solo novel, two novels for children co-written with his wife, novelist Gwenda Bond, and two short story collections. He works as a college instructor and rides his bicycles a lot. He lives in a 120 year old house in downtown Lexington, Kentucky.
Grace Seybold is a writer and poet living in Kingston, Ontario, where she works as a copy editor. She spends a lot of time these days in her garden, even though the local rabbits generally get about half of it, and she plays in the Society for Creative Anachronism, where her eventual goal is to learn every fibre-arts-related craft ever. Her name is pronounced SIGH-bold.
Fran Wilde’s novels and short stories have been finalists for six Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, three Hugo Awards, three Locus Awards, and a Lodestar. They include her Nebula- and Compton-Crook-winning debut novel Updraft, and her Nebula-winning debut middle-grade novel Riverland. Her short stories appear in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, and Uncanny. Fran directs the Genre Fiction MFA concentration at Western Colorado University and writes nonfiction for publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR.org, and Tor.com. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and at franwilde.net.
Michael Libling is a World Fantasy Award-nominated author whose short fiction has appeared in F&SF, Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, Amazing Stories, and many others. Published in 2019 and inspired by true events, his debut novel, Hollywood North: A Novel in Six Reels, is a fantasy noir set in his hometown of Trenton, Ontario. Michael is the father of three daughters and lives on Montreal’s West Island with his wife, Pat. A companion piece to this story, “How A Comic Book Ad Taught Me About the Holocaust” can be found at www.michaellibling.com.
Tina Connolly’s books include the Ironskin trilogy (Tor), the Seriously Wicked series (Tor Teen), and the collection On the Eyeball Floor and Other Stories (Fairwood Press). She has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Norton, Locus, and World Fantasy awards. She is one of the co-hosts of Escape Pod, and runs the flash fiction podcast Toasted Cake. Find her at tinaconnolly.com.
John Crowley was born in 1942 in an Army hospital in the appropriately liminal town of Presque Isle, Maine. He learned to read early, and before that, enjoyed turning the pages of thick and pictureless books. In high school and college he wrote poetry and fiction, and after graduation moved to New York City, where he worked in documentary film production and wrote three short SF novels: Engine Summer, The Deep, and Beasts. He moved to Massachusetts in 1979, and there completed a long fantasy novel, Little, Big: or, The Fairies’ Parliament. Others followed, to the number thirteen. He taught others how to write fiction at Yale for 25 years, and is now retired.
Recommended Reading
Matthew Baker, “Life Sentence” (Lightspeed, 2/19)
Elizabeth Bear, “A Time to Reap” (Uncanny, 11-12/19)
Michael Byers, “Sibling Rivalry” (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, 12/19)
Erin Cashier, “Fifteen Minutes From Now” (F&SF, 1-2/19)
Adam-Troy Castro, “The Gorilla in a Tutu Pri
nciple” (Analog, 9-10/19)
Adam-Troy Castro, “Survey” (F&SF, 1-2/19)
Ted Chiang, “Omphalos” (Exhalation)
P. Djeli Clarke, The Haunting of Tram Car 15 (Tor.com Publishing)
C. S. E. Cooney, Desdemona and the Deep (Tor.com Publishing)
Matthew Corradi, “Gundark Island” (Lightspeed, 4/19)
Kristi deMeester, “FiGen: A Love Story” (Interzone, 7-8/19)
Paul Di Filippo, Aeota, PS Publishing)
Susan di Rende, “Knife Witch” (The Cascadia Subduction Zone, Spring/19)
Andy Duncan, “Charlie Tells Another One” (Asimov’s, 9-10/19)
Thoraiya Dyer, “A Civilization Dreams of Absolutely Nothing” (Analog, 1-2/19)
Greg Egan, “The Slipway” (Analog, 7-8/19)
Greg Egan, “Instantiation” (Asimov’s, 3-4/19)
Greg Egan, Perihelion Summer (Tor.com Publishing)
Gregory Feeley, “Hanging Gardens” (Mission Critical)
Molly Gloss, “The Everlasting Humming of the Earth” (F&SF, 7-8/19)
Maria Haskins, “The Brightest Lights of Heaven” (Fireside, 7/19)
Kate Heartfield, Alice Payne Arrives (Tor.com Publishing)
S. L. Huang, “As the Last I May Know” (Tor.com, 1/23/19)
Alexander Jablokov, “How Sere Looked for a Pair of Boots” (Asimov’s, 1-2/19)
Felix Kent, “The Dynastic Arrangements of the Habsburgs, Washakie Branch” (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Summer/19)
Rajan Khanna, “All In” (Lightspeed, 09/19)
T. Kingfisher, “Fisher-Bird” (The Mythic Dream)
Ellen Klages, “Nice Things” (Uncanny, 5-6/19)
Derek Künsken, “The Ghosts of Ganymede” (Clarkesworld, 1/19)
Rich Larson, “Contagion’s Eve at the House Noctambulous” (F&SF, 3-4/19)
Yoon Ha Lee, “Glass Cannon” (Hexarchate Stories)
Michael Libling, “How I Came to Write Fantasy” (F&SF, 11-12/19)
Marissa Lingen, “ “The Thing, With Feathers” (Uncanny, 1-2/19, 1-2/19)
Kelly Link, “The White Cat’s Divorce” (F&SF, 9-10/19)
Ian MacDonald, The Menace from Farside (Tor.com Publishing)
Maureen McHugh, “Under the Hill” (F&SF, 9-10/19)
Holly Messinger, “Scapegoat” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 12/19/19)
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, “On the Lonely Shore” (Uncanny, 3-4/19)
Tobi Ogundiran, “Faêl” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 7/18/19)
Jay O’Connell, “The Gorgon” (Asimov’s, 1-2/19)
Jay O’Connell, “Not Only Who You Know” (Asimov’s, 5-6/19)
Suzanne Palmer, “Dave’s Head” (Clarkesworld, 9/19)
Suzanne Palmer, “Waterlines” (Asimov’s, 7-8/19)
K. J. Parker, “Portrait of the Artist” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 9/26/19)
Charles Payseur, “Undercurrents” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 3/28/19)
Josh Pearce, “Leave Your Iron at the Door” (Analog, 5-6/19)
Sarah Pinsker, “The Narwhal” (Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea)
Sarah Pinsker, “The Blue at the Corner of the Eye” (Uncanny, 7-8/19)
Jonathan Plombon, “Giving a Blood Transfusion to a Stone” (Bourbon Penn, 7/19)
Tim Pratt, “A Champion of Nigh-Space” (Patreon, 04/30/19)
Vina Jie-Min Prasad, “Black Flowers Blossom” (Uncanny, 11-12/19)
Sofia Rhei, “Learning Report” (Everything is Made of Letters)
Karen Russell, “The Gondoliers” (Tin House, Summer/19)
Rian Amilcar Scott, “Shape-Ups at Delilahs” (The New Yorker, 10/7/2019)
Gord Sellar, “Winter Wheat” (Asimov’s, 9-10/19)
Michael Swanwick, “Eighteen Songs by Debussy” (Asimov’s, 3-4/19)
Lavie Tidhar, “New Atlantis” (F&SF, 5-6/19)
Mark Tiedemann, “Follow, Past Meridian” (Analog, (11-12/19)
Setsu Uzume, “The Lawman’s Boy” (Bourbon Penn, 11/19)
James Van Pelt, “Second Quarter and Counting” (Analog, 3-4/19)
James Warner, “The Realitarians” (Interzone, 5-6/19)
Peter Watts, “Cyclopterus” (Mission Critical)
Fran Wilde, “Please, Stop Printing Unicorns” (New York Times, 8/26/2019)
Charles Wilkinson, “The Immaterialists” (Bourbon Penn, 5/19)
E. Lily Yu, “The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi” (Asimov’s, 5-6/19)
Publication History
“Green Glass: A Love Story” by E Lily Yu © by E Lily Yu, Originally published in If This Goes On, edited by Cat Rambo. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“At the Fall” by Alec Nevala-Lee © by Alec Nevala-Lee. Originally published in Analog, 5-6/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Fine Print” by Chinelo Onwualu, © by Chinelo Onwualu. Originally published in New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Fix That House!” by John Kessel. © by John Kessel. Originally published in Interzone, 9-10/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Mighty are the Meek and the Myriad” by Cassandra Khaw. © by Cassandra Khaw. Originally published in F&SF, 7-8/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Savannah Problem” by Adam-Troy Castro. © by Adam-Troy Castro. Originally published in Analog, 1-2/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“How to Kiss a Hojacki” by Debbie Urbanski. © by Debbie Urbanski. Originally published in F&SF, 5-6/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Tourists” by Rammel Chan. © by Rammel Chan. Originally published in Asimov’s, 3-4/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Vis Dilendi” by Marie Brennan. © by Marie Brennan. Originally published in Uncanny, 3-4/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Cloud-Born” by Gregory Feeley. © by Gregory Feeley. Originally published in Clarkesworld, 11/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Give the Family My Love” by A.T Greenblatt. © by A.T. Greenblatt. Originally published in Clarkesworld, 02/2019. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Archronology of Love” by Caroline M. Yoachim. © Caroline M. Yoachim. Originally published in Lightspeed, 04/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Migration Suite: A Study in C Sharp Minor” by Maurice Broaddus. © by Maurice Broaddus. Originally published in Uncanny, 7-8/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Secret Stories of Doors” by Sofia Rhei. © by Sofia Rhei. Originally published in Everything is Made of Letters, collection. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Ocean Between the Leaves” by Ray Nayler. © by Ray Nayler. Originally published in Asimov’s, 7-8/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations” by Minsoo Kang © by Minsoo Kang. Originally published in New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Shucked” by Sam J. Miller. © by Sam J. Miller. Originally published in F&SF, 11-12/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Empty Box” by Allison Mulvihill. © by Allison Mulvihill Originally published in Analog, 11-12/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear” by Kelly Link. © by Kelly Link. Originally published in Tin House, Summer 2019. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Ink, and Breath, and Spring” by Frances Rowat. © by Frances Rowat. Originally published in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, 11/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Death of Fire Station 10” by Ray Nayler. © by Ray Nayler. Originally published in Lightspeed, 10/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Love in the Time of Immuno-Sharing” by Andy Dudak. © by Andy Dudak. Originally published in Analog, 1-2/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Bark, Blood, and Sacrifice” by Alexandra Seidel. © by Alexanra Seidel. Originally published in Not One of Us, 10/19. Reprinted by per
mission of the author.
“Tick Tock” by Xia Jia, translated by Emily Gin. © by Xia Jia. Originally published in Clarkesworld, 5/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Mnemosyne” by Catherine MacLeod. © by Catherine MacLeod. Originally published in OnSpec, 04/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Cloud” by Michael Swanwick. © by Michael Swanwick. Originally published in Asimov’s, 11-12/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“A Country Called Winter” by Theodora Goss. © by Theodora Goss. Originally published in Snow White Learns Witchcraft. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“And Now His Lordship is Laughing” by Shiv Ramdas. © by Shiv Ramdas. Originally published in Strange Horizons, 09/20/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Knowledgeable Creatures” by Christopher Rowe. © by Christopher Rowe. Originally published in Tor.com, (03/06/19. Reprinted by permission of the author.