“Here they come,” said the commander.
About the Authors
David G. Hartwell (www.davidghartwell.com) is a senior editor of Tor/Forge Books. His doctorate is in Comparative Medieval Literature. He is the proprietor of Dragon Press, publisher and bookseller, which publishes The New York Review of Science Fiction, and the president of David G. Hartwell, Inc. He is the author of Age of Wonders and the editor of many anthologies, including The Dark Descent, The World Treasury of Science Fiction, The Hard SF Renaissance, The Space Opera Renaissance, and a number of Christmas anthologies, among others. Recently he co-edited his fifteenth annual paperback volume of Year’s Best SF, and co-edited the ninth Year’s Best Fantasy. John Updike, reviewing The World Treasury of Science Fiction in The New Yorker, characterized him as a “loving expert.” He is on the board of the IAFA, is cochairman of the board of the World Fantasy Convention, and an administrator of the Philip K. Dick Award. He has won the Eaton Award, the World Fantasy Award, and has been nominated for the Hugo Award forty times to date, winning as Best Editor in 2006, 2008, and 2009.
Kathryn Cramer (www.kathryncramer.com) is a writer and anthologist. She won a World Fantasy Award for best anthology for The Architecture of Fear, co-edited with Peter Pautz; she was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for her anthology Walls of Fear. She co-edits anthologies with David G. Hartwell, such as the huge anthologies of hard sf The Ascent of Wonder, The Space Opera Renaissance, and The Hard SF Renaissance, and does the annual Year’s Best Fantasy and the Year’s Best SF with him. She is an editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction, for which she has been nominated for the Hugo Award seventeen times. Her dark fantasy hypertext, In Small and Large Pieces, was published by Eastgate Systems, Inc. She is employed by Wolfram Research and by L. W. Currey, Inc.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Praise
The astonishing shape of things to come
Year’s
Best
SF
16
Praise for previous volumes
“An impressive roster of authors.”
Locus
“The finest modern science fiction writing.”
Pittsburgh Tribune
Edited by David G. Hartwell
YEAR’S BEST SF
YEAR’S BEST SF 2
YEAR’S BEST SF 3
YEAR’S BEST SF 4
YEAR’S BEST SF 5
YEAR’S BEST SF 6
Edited by David G. Hartwell
& Kathryn Cramer
YEAR’S BEST SF 7
YEAR’S BEST SF 8
YEAR’S BEST SF 9
YEAR’S BEST SF 10
YEAR’S BEST SF 11
YEAR’S BEST SF 12
YEAR’S BEST SF 13
YEAR’S BEST SF 14
YEAR’S BEST SF 15
YEAR’S BEST SF 16
YEAR’S BEST FANTASY
YEAR’S BEST FANTASY 2
YEAR’S BEST FANTASY 3
YEAR’S BEST FANTASY 4
YEAR’S BEST FANTASY 5
Copyright
Additional copyright information appears under Story Copyrights.
This book is a collection of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780062035899
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover art by John Harris
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Story Copyrights
“Sleeping Dogs” by Joe Haldeman, copyright © 2010 by Joe Haldeman. First published in Gateways, edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull.
“Castoff World” by Kay Kenyon, copyright © 2010 by Kay Kenyon.
“Petopia” by Benjamin Crowell, copyright © 2010 by Benjamin Crowell.
“Future in the Memories Market” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, copyright © 2010 by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. First published in Clarksworld, issue 45, June 2010.
“A Preliminary Assessment of the Drake Equation, Being an Excerpt from the Memoirs of Star Captain Y.-T. Lee” by Vernor Vinge, copyright © by Vernor Vinge. First published in Gateways, edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“About It” by Terry Bisson, copyright © 2010 by Terry Bisson.
“Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra” by Vandana Singh, copyright © 2010 by Vandana Singh.
“Under the Moons of Venus” by Damien Broderick, copyright © 2010 by Damien Broderick. First published in Subterranean, 2010.
“All the Love in the World” by Cat Sparks, copyright © 2010 by Cat Sparks.
“At Budokan” by Alastair Reynolds, copyright © 2010 by Alastair Reynolds
“Graffiti in the Library of Babel” by David Langford, copyright © 2010 by David Langford.
“Steadfast Castle” by Michael Swanwick, copyright © 2010 by Michael Swanwick. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
“How to Become a Mars Overlord” by Catherynne M. Valente, copyright © 2010 by Catherynne M. Valente.
“To Hie from Far Cilenia” by Karl Schroeder, copyright © 2009 by Karl Schroeder.
“The Hebras and the Demons and the Damned” by Brenda Cooper, copyright © 2010 by Brenda Cooper.
“Penumbra” by Gregory Benford, copyright © 2010 by Gregory Benford.
“The Good Hand” by Robert Reed, copyright © 2010 Dell Magazines.
“The Cassandra Project” by Jack McDevitt, copyright © 2010 by Cryptic, Inc.
“Jackie’s-Boy” by Steven Popkes, copyright © 2010 by Steven Popkes.
“Eight Miles” by Sean McMullen, copyright © 2010 by Sean McMullen.
“Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance” by Paul Park, copyright © 2010 by Paul Park.
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (P.O. Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au/ebooks
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollins.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Introduction
Sleeping Dogs by Joe Haldeman
Castoff World by Kay Kenyon
Petopia by Benjamin Crowell
Futures in the Memories Market by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
A Preliminary Assessment of the Drake Equation, Being an Excerpt from the Memoirs of Star Captain Y.-T. Lee by Vernor Vinge
About It by Terry Bisson
Under the Moons of Venus by Damien Broderick
All the Love in the World by Cat Sparks
At Budokan by Alastair Reynolds
Graffiti in the Library of Babel by David Langford
Steadfast Castle by Michael Swanwick
How to Become a Mars Overlord by Catherynne M. Valente
To Hie from Far Cilenia by Karl Schroeder
The Hebras and the Demons and the Damned by Brenda Cooper
Penumbra by Gregory Benford
The Good Hand by Robert Reed
The Cassandra Project by Jack McDevitt
Jackie’s-Boy by Steven Popkes
Eight Miles by Sean McMullen
Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance by Paul Park
About the Authors
Praise
Edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
Copyright
Story Copyrights
About the Publisher
Year’s Best SF 16 Page 53