The Year's Best Science Fiction--Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

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  Table of Contents

  About the Editor

  Copyright Page

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  For Dr. Samir Mehta and his surgical staff at Presbyterian Hospital and for Dean, Laverne, Deb, Aniette, Morgan, Amy, Marquise, Luca Cella, and the rest of the staff at Watermark Rehabilitation

  Permissions

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT IS MADE FOR PERMISSION TO REPRINT THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL:

  “Terminal,” by Lavie Tidhar. Copyright © 2016 by Lavie Tidhar. Published electronically on Tor.com, April 14. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Touring with the Alien,” by Carolyn Ives Gilman. Copyright © 2016 by Carolyn Ives Gilman. First published electronically on Clarkesworld, April 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Patience Lake,” by Matthew Claxton. Copyright © 2016 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Jonas and the Fox,” by Rich Larson. Copyright © 2016 by Rich Larson. First published electronically on Clarkesworld, May 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Prodigal,” by Gord Sellar. Copyright © 2016 by Dell Magazines. First published in Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact, December 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “KIT: Some Assembly Required,” by Kathe Koja and Carter Scholz. Copyright © 2016 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 2016. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

  “Vortex,” by Gregory Benford. Copyright © 2016 by Spilogale, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Elves of Antarctica,” by Paul McAuley. Copyright © 2016 by Paul McAuley. First published in Drowned Worlds (Solaris), edited by Jonathan Strahan. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Baby Eaters,” by Ian McHugh. Copyright © 2016 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, January 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “A Salvaging of Ghosts,” by Aliette de Bodard. Copyright © 2016 by Aliette de Bodard. First published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 195. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Those Shadows Laugh,” by Geoff Ryman. Copyright © 2016 by Spilogale, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “RedKing,” by Craig DeLancey. Copyright © 2016 by Craig DeLancey. First published in Lightspeed, March 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Things with Beards,” by Sam J. Miller. Copyright © 2016 by Sam J. Miller. First published electronically on Clarkesworld, June 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Fieldwork,” by Shariann Lewitt. Copyright © 2016 by Shariann Lewitt. First published in To Shape the Dark (Candlewick), edited by Athena Andreadis. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Further Adventures of Mr. Costello,” by David Gerrold. Copyright © 2016 by Spilogale, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Innumerable Glimmering Lights,” by Rich Larson. Copyright © 2016 by Rich Larson. First published in Clockwork Phoenix 5 (Mythic Delirium Books), edited by Mike Allen. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Fifty Shades of Grays,” by Steven Barnes. Copyright © 2016 by Steven Barnes. First published in Lightspeed, June 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee,” by Alastair Reynolds. Copyright © 2016 by Alastair Reynolds. First published in Bridging Infinity (Solaris), edited by Jonathan Strahan. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Cold Comfort,” by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty. Copyright © 2016 by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty. First published in Bridging Infinity (Solaris), edited by Jonathan Strahan. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

  “The Art of Space Travel,” by Nina Allan. Copyright © 2016 by Nina Allan. Published electronically on Tor.com, July 27. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Flight from the Ages,” by Derek Künsken. Copyright © 2016 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “My Generations Shall Praise,” by Samantha Henderson. Copyright © 2016 by Interzone. First published in Interzone 267. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Mars Abides,” by Stephen Baxter. Copyright © 2016 by Stephen Baxter. First published in Obelisk, August 2016.

  “The Visitor from Taured,” by Ian R. MacLeod. Copyright © 2016 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “When the Stone Eagle Flies,” by Bill Johnson. Copyright © 2016 by Dell Magazines. First published in Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact, June 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Vanishing Kind,” by Lavie Tidhar. Copyright © 2016 by Spilogale, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “One Sister, Two Sisters, Three,” by James Patrick Kelly. Copyright © 2016 by James Patrick Kelly. First published electronically on Clarkesworld, October 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts,” by Ken Liu. Copyright © 2016 by Ken Liu. First published in Drowned Worlds (Solaris), edited by Jonathan Strahan. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Checkerboard Planet,” by Eleanor Arnason. Copyright © 2016 by Eleanor Arnason. First published electronically on Clarkesworld, December 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “They Have All One Breath,” by Karl Bunker. Copyright © 2016 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Mika Model,” by Paolo Bacigalupi. First published in Slate, April 16. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent.

  “That Game We Played During the War,” by Carrie Vaughn. Copyright © 2016 by Carrie Vaughn. Published electronically on Tor.com, March 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Because Change Was the Ocean and We Lived by Her Mercy,” by Charlie Jane Anders. Copyright © 2016 by Charlie Jane Anders. First published in Drowned Worlds (Solaris), edited by Jonathan Strahan. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The One Who Isn’t,” by Ted Kosmatka. Copyright © 2016 by Ted Kosmatka. First published in Lightspeed, July 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Those Brighter Stars,” by Mercurio D. Rivera. Copyright © 2016 by Mercurio D. Rivera. First published in Lightspeed, August 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “A Tower for the Coming World,” by Maggie C
lark. Copyright © 2016 by Maggie Clark. First published electronically on Clarkesworld, December 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Firstborn, Lastborn,” by Melissa Scott. Copyright © 2016 by Melissa Scott. First published in To Shape the Dark (Candlewick), edited by Athena Andreadis. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Woman’s Christmas,” by Ian McDonald. Copyright © 2016 by Ian McDonald. First published in Now We Are Ten (NewCon Press), edited by Ian Whates. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Iron Tactician,” by Alastair Reynolds. Copyright © 2016 by Alastair Reynolds. First published in The Iron Tactician (NewCon Press), edited by Ian Whates. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Acknowledgments

  The editor would like to thank the following people for their help and support: Susan Casper, Jonathan Strahan, Sean Wallace, Neil Clarke, Gordon Van Gelder, C.C. Finlay, Andy Cox, John Joseph Adams, Ellen Datlow, Sheila Williams, Trevor Quachri, Peter Crowther, William Shaffer, Ian Whates, Paula Guran, Liza Trombi, Robert Wexler, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Joseph Eschrich, Jonathan Oliver, Stephen Cass, Lynne M. Thomas, Gavin Grant, Kelly Link, Derek Künsken, Gord Sellar, Ian Redman, David Lee Summers, Wendy S. Delmater, Beth Wodzinski, E. Catherine Tobler, Alexander Irvine, Carl Rafala, Emily Hockaday, Edmund R. Schubert, A.C. Wise, William Ledbetter, Wendy S. Delmater, Jed Hartman, Rich Horton, Mark R. Kelly, Tehani Wessely, Aliette de Bodard, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Ken Liu, James Patrick Kelly, Ian McDonald, Karl Bunker, Paolo Bacigalupi, Lavie Tidhar, Rich Larson, Samantha Henderson, Pat Murphy, Paul Doherty, Ted Kosmatka, Ariana Phillips, Mecurio D. Rivera, Carrie Vaughn, Gregory Benford, Charlie Jane Anders, Heather Shaw, Bill Johnson, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Arlyn Alderdice, David Gerrold, Jacob Weisman, Kathe Koja, Carter Scholz, Ian McHugh, Shariann Lewitt, Steven Barnes, Melissa Scott, Stephen Baxter, Christopher Schelling, Craig DeLancey, Eleanor Arnason, Nina Allan, Ian R. MacLeod, Paul McAuley, Maggie Clark, Nick Wood, Eric Brown, Sam J. Miller, Matthew Claxton, Karen Bovenmyer, Navah Wolfe, Lucus Law, Dominik Parisien, Nich Wolven, Terry Bisson, Geoff Ryman, Eric T. Reynolds, Alvaro Ziinos-Amaro, Oluwole Talabi, Athena Andreadis, Jaym Gates, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Thoraiya Dyer, Stewart Baker, John O’Neill, Vaughne Lee Hansen, Mark Watson, Sean Swanwick, Katherine Canfield, Jaime Coyne, and special thanks to my own editor, Marc Resnick.

  Thanks are also due to the late, lamented Charles N. Brown, and to all his staff, whose magazine Locus [Locus Publications, P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661. $63 in the U.S. for a one-year subscription (twelve issues) via periodical mail; $76 for a one-year (twelve issues) via first class credit card orders (510) 339 9198] was used as an invaluable reference source throughout the Summation; Locus Online (www.locusmag.com), edited by Mark R. Kelly, has also become a key reference source.

  Summation: 2016

  Like last year, 2016 was another relatively quiet year in the SF publishing world, although there were some changes down deep that might eventually have an effect strong enough to percolate up to the top where the average reader notices such things.

  One such effect that may eventually become noticeable to the average reader is the dwindling of mass-market paperback titles, once the most common way (at one point, almost the only way) for SF books to be published, from bookstore shelves. The publishing industry has been trying to find the right balance between traditional print publishing and the publishing of titles as e-books for a number of years now, and one area where publishers seem to be switching away from print publication to e-book-only publication is in the mass-market paperback market niche. At least in the science fiction/fantasy publishing world, the number of mass-market paperbacks published was down for the eighth year in a row, hitting a new record low, down 11 percent since 2015. I think this may be a mistake, myself. For all the supposed convenience and portability of e-books (and their admitted great advantage of being able to store and carry more than one title to be accessed on the same device), for me there are times when nothing beats being able to stick a mass-market paperback in your back pocket and be able to wander, hands-free, until you find a shady tree to relax and read under on a sunny summer afternoon. Of course, I’m a nostalgic old fart who grew up in a time when the vast majority of books, especially SF and fantasy, were issued as mass-market paperbacks, largely findable—since respectable bookstores carried few if any genre titles—in spinner racks in drugstores (spinner racks themselves are also becoming hard to find as paperbacks dwindle, and may soon be extinct). If you’re of a younger generation than I am though (as it seems like practically everybody is these days), your mileage may vary.

  An interesting sidelight on the portability wars is that dedicated e-readers themselves, like the Kindle and the Nook, once the hottest new product anybody who was technologically oriented could buy, may also be on the slow boat to eventual extinction as many people switch over to reading digital books on their smartphones and tablets instead. According to a Nielsen survey, the portion of people who read books primarily on e-readers instead of on smartphones or tablets fell to 32 percent in the first quarter of 2015, from 50 percent in 2012; I haven’t found figures for 2016, but I’m willing to bet that the downward trend has continued.

  And waiting in the wings is probably some just-being-developed device that will gradually replace smartphones and tablets.

  Final figures for 2016 aren’t in yet, but so far it doesn’t look like a bad year for the publishing industry. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated 2016 retail figures that show bookstore sales of $11,981 million, up 2.6 percent from $11,683 million. For the year-to-date, sales were up 4.5 percent to $7,853 billion. All retail was up 3.1 percent.

  * * *

  In probably the biggest publishing news of the year, the restructuring of Penguin Random House continued with the merging of Berkley with Putnam and Dutton, which will now be joined together with Putnam and Dutton under unified management. Ivan Held will manage Berkley, as he does Putnam and Dutton, and their editorial and production departments will be “more closely integrated.” Berkley Publishing Group president Leslie Gelbman stepped down, with Berkley’s publisher Kara Welsh moving to Ballantine Bantam Dell. In news that affects the genre more directly, editors Diana Gill and Sharyn November were let go by Penguin Random House; Gill had only recently been hired as executive editor at Ace/Berkley, replacing retiring editor Ginjer Buchanan. Shake-ups happened at Tor Books too, with longtime executive editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden named associate publisher. Devi Pillai, formerly editorial director at Orbit, was named an associate publisher at Tor as well, while Linda Quinton was named publisher of Forge Books, and Kathleen Doherty will continue as publisher of Tor Teen and Starscape. It was also announced that Diana Gill, having just left Penguin Random House, joined Tor/Forge as executive editor, while Liz Gorinsky and Miriam Weinberg were promoted to senior editor, Jennifer Gunnels and Diana Pho were promoted to editor, Christopher Morgan was promoted to junior associate editor, while Melissa Singer was named manager of editorial operations. Elsewhere, Perseus Book Group sold its publishing business to Hachette Book Group and its distribution business to Ingram Content Group; Hachette plans to make Perseus a separate division, under group publisher Susan Weinberg. Linda Zecher stepped down as CEO of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. St. Martin’s announced a new YA line, Wednesday Books, taking over all of St. Martin’s YA books as well as focusing on “coming-of-age” stories for both the YA and adult audiences, to be run by editorial director Sara Goodman and Jennifer Enderlin. UK publisher Orion is launching a new fiction and nonfiction line, Trapeze, to publish twenty titles a year, Farrar, Straus & Giroux announced a new imprint, to focus on “experimental fiction,” MCD/FSG. Samhain Publishing is closing down. Yanni Kuznia was promoted to managing editor and chief operating officer at Subterranean Press. And Paul Stevens, former Tor editor, joined the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

  * * *

  2016 was another fairly stable year in the professional print magazine market, following years of precipitous declin
e in subscriptions and circulation.

  Asimov’s Science Fiction had a strong year this year, publishing good work by Kathe Koja and Carter Scholz, Matthew Claxton, Rich Larson, Ian R. MacLeod, Karl Bunker, Derek Künsken, Ian McHugh, Mercurio D. Rivera, and others. As usual, their SF was considerably stronger than their fantasy, usually the reverse of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Asimov’s Science Fiction registered a 10.1 percent loss in overall circulation, down to 17,313 from 2015’s 19,250. There were 8,191 print subscriptions and 7,078 digital subscription, for a total of 15,269, down from 2015’s 17,052. Newsstand sales were down to 2,044 from 2015’s 2,198 copies. Sell-through remained steady at 37 percent. Sheila Williams completed her thirteenth year as Asimov’s editor.

  Analog Science Fiction and Fact had good work by Gord Sellar, Bill Johnson, Maggie Clarke, Karl Bunker, Rich Larson, Brendan Dubois, Michael F. Flynn, and others. Analog registered a 7.7 percent loss in overall circulation, down to 21,573 from 2015’s 20,356. There were 18,800 subscriptions, down from 2015’s 20,356 subscriptions; of this total, 13,066 were print subscriptions, while 5,734 were digital subscriptions. Newsstand sales were down slightly to 2,773 from 2015’s 3,019. Sell-through was 43 percent. Editor Trevor Quachi completed his third full year as editor.

  Asimov’s and Analog are both moving from their current ten-issue per year schedule to a schedule of six double issues per year in 2017, a move that sometimes is seen as a bad omen for a magazine, although it can save on printing and production costs. F&SF has survived on that schedule for several years now, so we’ll see.

  Once again, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction was almost exactly the reverse of Asimov’s, with the fantasy published there being stronger than the science fiction, although the ratio of good SF to good fantasy seems to be creeping up somewhat. They had a strong year, publishing good work by Geoff Ryman, David Gerrold, Lavie Tidhar, Gregory Benford, Robert Reed, Terry Bisson, Alex Irvine, and others. F&SF registered a slight 1.8 rise in overall circulation from 9,877 to 10,055, although as digital sales figures are not available for F&SF, there’s no way to be certain what the actual circulation number is. Subscriptions dropped slightly from 7,576 to 7,247; of that total, 2,808 copies were sold on the newsstand, up from 2015’s 2,301, with no information on how many digital sales there were. Sell-through rose to 33 percent. Charles Coleman Finlay completed his first full year as F&SF, having taken over from Gordon Van Gelder, who had edited the magazine for eighteen years, with the March/April 2015 issue. Van Gelder remains as the magazine’s owner and publisher, as he has been since 2014.