by Rich Horton
Nick Mamatas is the author of the novels a number of novels, including Sensation, Bullettime, and the forthcoming Love is the Law. His short fiction has appeared on Tor.com, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Weird Tales, and many other magazines and anthologies. His reportage and essays on politics and technology have appeared in Clamor, In These Times, Village Voice, The New Humanist, and many other venues.
As an undergraduate, Ms. Xia Jia majored in Atmospheric Sciences at Peking University. She then entered the Film Studies Program at the Communication University of China, where she completed her Master’s thesis: “The Representation of Women in Science Fiction Films.” Currently, she’s pursuing a Ph. D. in Comparative Literature and World Culture at Peking University. She has been publishing science fiction and fantasy since 2004 in a variety of venues, including Science Fiction World and Jiuzhou Fantasy. Several of her stories have won the Galaxy Award, China’s most prestigious science fiction award. Besides writing and translating science fiction, she also writes film scripts.
Nina Allan’s stories have featured in the anthologies Best Horror of the Year #2, Year’s Best SF #28, The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2012, the Mammoth Book of Best British Crime #10 and the Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women. Her story cycle The Silver Wind was published by Eibonvale Press in 2011, and her most recent book, Stardust, is now available from PS Publishing. Nina lives and works by the sea in Hastings, East Sussex.
Marissa K. Lingen lives in the Minneapolis suburbs with two large men and one small dog. She is the author of more than ninety works of short science fiction and fantasy. She makes a really good blueberry buttermilk cake if you ask nicely, but that hardly seems relevant here.
Tamsyn Muir is based in Auckland, New Zealand, where she divides her time between writing, dogs, and high school English teaching. A graduate of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop 2010, her work has previously appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales and Nightmare Magazine.
Michael Blumlein is the author of numerous novels, including The Movement of Mountains, X, Y, and The Healer. He is also the author of the award-winning story collection, The Brains of Rats. His second collection, What the Doctor Ordered: Tales of the Bizarre and the Magnificent, will be released in 2013. He has also written for the stage and for film. His novel X,Y was made into a feature length movie. In addition to writing, Dr. Blumlein is a practicing physician. You can visit him online at michaelblumlein.com
Kelly Link is the author of three short-story collections. With her husband, Gavin J. Grant, she runs Small Beer Press, and edits the occasional anthology as well as the zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. They live with their daughter, Ursula, in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Jay Lake lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His books for 2012 and 2013 include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay is a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
Recommended Reading
Mike Allen, “Twa Sisters” (Not One of Us #47)
Erik Amundsen, “Draftyhouse” (Clarkesworld, 4/12)
Eleanor Arnason, “Holmes Sherlock” (Eclipse Online, 11/12)
Eleanor Arnason, “The Woman Who Fooled Death Five Times” (F&SF, 7-8/12)
Dale Bailey, “Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous” (Asimov’s, 9/12)
Michael Bishop, “Twenty Lights to the “Land of Snow” (Going Interstellar)
Gregory Norman Bossert, “The Telling” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 1/26/12)
Richard Bowes, “Seven Smiles and Seven Frowns” (Lightspeed, 11/12)
Tobias Buckell, “Press Enter to Execute” (Fireside #1)
Pat Cadigan, “The Girl Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” (Edge of Infinity)
Adam-Troy Castro, “My Wife Hates Time Travel” (Lightspeed, 9/12)
Tom Crosshill, “A Well-Adjusted Man” (Lightspeed, 11/12)
Aliette de Bodard, “Immersion” (Clarkesworld, 6/12)
Aliette de Bodard, “On a Red Station, Drifting” (Immersion Press)
Noreen Doyle, “His Crowning Glory” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 1/26/12)
Jennifer Egan, “Black Box” (The New Yorker, 6/4/12)
Amal El-Mohtar, “Wing” (Strange Horizons, 12/12)
Michael F. Flynn, “The Journeyman: On the Short-Grass Prairier” (Analog, 10/12)
Jeffrey Ford, “A Natural History of Autumn” (F&SF, 7-8/12)
Molly Gloss, “The Grinnell Method” (Strange Horizons, 09/12)
Theodora Goss, “Beautiful Boys” (Asimov’s, 8/12)
M. John Harrison, “In Autotelia” (Arc 1.1)
Samantha Henderson, “Beside Calais” (Strange Horizons, 05/12)
Howard V. Hendrix, “Red Rover, Red Rover” (Analog, 7-8/12)
N. K. Jemisin, “The Valedictorian” (After)
C. W. Johnson, “The Burst” (Asimov’s, 1/12)
James Patrick Kelly, “The Biggest” (Empire State)
James Patrick Kelly, “Declaration” (Rip-Off)
Crystal Koo, “The Perpetual Day” (Lauriat)
Ted Kosmatka, “The Color Least Used in Nature” (F&SF, 1-2/12)
Jay Lake, “The Stars Do Not Lie” (Asimov’s, 10-11/12)
John Langan, “Renfrew’s Course” (Lightspeed, 6/12)
Yoon Ha Lee, “The Battle of Candle Arc” (Clarkesworld, 10/12)
Anne Ivy, “Scry” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 3/8/12)
Nancy Kress, After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall (Tachyon)
Ken Liu, “Arc” (F&SF, 7-8/12)
Ken Liu, “Cutting” (Electric Velocipede, Summer)
Paul McAuley, “Antarctica Starts Here” (Asimov’s, 10-11/12)
Sean McMullen, “Electrica” (F&SF, 3-4/12)
Sarah Monette, “Blue Lace Agate” (Lightspeed, 1/12)
Linda Nagata, “Nightside on Callisto” (Lightspeed, 3/12)
Alec Nevala-Lee, “The Voices” (Analog, 9/12)
K. J. Parker, “One Little Room an Everywhere” (Eclipse Online, 10/12)
Richard Parks, “In the Palace of the Jade Lion” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 7/25/12)
Rachel Pollack, “Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls” (F&SF, 7-8/12)
Steven Popkes, “Sudden, Broken, and Unexpected” (Asimov’s, 12/12)
Tom Purdom, “Golva’s Ascent” (Asimov’s, 3/12)
Robert Reed, “Murder Born” (Asimov’s, 2/12)
Robert Reed, “Katabasis” (F&SF, 11-12/12)
Joel Richards, “Patagonia” (Asimov’s, 3/12)
Margaret Ronald, “Sunlight Society” (Clarkesworld, 5/12)
Karen Russell, “Reeling for the Empire” (Tin House 54)
Kenneth Schneyer, “Serkers and Sleep” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 5/31/12)
Vandana Singh, “A Handful of Rice” (Steampunk Revolution)
Vandana Singh, “Ruminations in an Alien Tongue” (Lightspeed, 4/12)
Cory Skerry, “Sinking Among Lilies” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 4/5/12)
Alan Smale, “The Mongolian Book of the Dead” (Asimov’s, 10-11/12)
Michael Swanwick, “The Mongolian Wizard” (Tor.com, 7/12)
Karin Tidbeck, “Rebecka” (Jagannath and Other Stories)
Lavie Tidhar, “The Memcordist” (Eclipse Online, 12/12)
Genevieve Valentine, “The Last Run of the Coppelia” (Armored)
Carrie Vaughn, “Astrophilia” (Clarkesworld, 7/12)
Carrie Vaughn, “Harry and Marlowe and the Talisman of the Cult of Egil” (Lightspeed, 2/12)
Leigh Verdugo, “The Witch of Duva” (Tor.com, 6/12)
Nghi Vo, “Tiger Stripes” (Strange Horizons, 5/21/12)
Chris Willrich, “The Mote Dancer and the Firelife” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 3/8/12)
Dorothy Yarros, “The Fourth Exam” (Strange Horizons, 09/12)
Caroline Y
oachim and Tina Connolly, “Flash Bang Remember” (Lightspeed, 8/12)
Publication History
“Nahiku West” by Linda Nagata. © by Linda Nagata. Originally published in Analog, October. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring” by Genevieve Valentine. © by Genevieve Valentine. Originally published in Lightspeed, January. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Under the Eaves” by Lavie Tidhar. © by Lavie Tidhar. Originally published in Robots: The Recent A.I. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Honey Bear” by Sofia Samatar. © by Sofia Samatar. Originally published in Clarkesworld, August. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“One Day in Time City” by David Ira Cleary. © by David Ira Cleary.Originally published in Interzone, July-August. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Black Feminist’s Guide to Science Fiction Film Editing” by Sandra McDonald. © by Sandra McDonald. Originally published in Asimov’s, December. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Governess and the Lobster” by Margaret Ronald. © by Margaret Ronald. Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Swift, Brutal Retaliation” by Meghan McCarron. © by Meghan McCarron. Originally published in Tor.com, January. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Scattered Along the River of Heaven” by Aliette de Bodard. © by Aliette de Bodard. Originally published in Clarkesworld, January. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Four Kinds of Cargo” by Leonard Richardson. © by Leonard Richardson. Originally published in Strange Horizons, November. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Elementals” by Ursula K. Le Guin. © by Ursula K. Le Guin. Originally published in Tin House, July. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Prayer” by Robert Reed. © by Robert Reed. Originally published in Clarkesworld, May. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Scrap Dragon” by Naomi Kritzer © by Naomi Kritzer. Originally published in F&SF, January-February. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Contrary Gardener” by Christopher Rowe. © by Christopher Rowe. Originally published in Eclipse Online, October. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Castle That Jack Built” by Emily Gilman. © by Emily Gilman. Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, January. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns” by Elizabeth Bear. © by Elizabeth Bear. Originally published in Asimov’s, January. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Philosophy of Ships” by Caroline M. Yoachim. © by Caroline M. Yoachim. Originally published in Interzone, November-December. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Keats Variation” by K.M. Ferebee. © by K.M. Ferebee. Originally published in Strange Horizons, June. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Fireborn” by Robert Charles Wilson. © by Robert Charles Wilson. Originally published in Rip-Off. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“One Breath, One Stroke” by Catherynne M. Valente. © by Catherynne M. Valente. Originally published in The Future is Japanese. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Bernoulli War” by Gord Sellar. © by Gord Sellar. Originally published in Asimov’s, August. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Things Greater Than Love” by Kate Bachus. © by Kate Bachus. Originally published in Strange Horizons, March. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“A Murmuration of Starlings” by Joe Pitkin. © by Joe Pitkin. Originally published in Analog, June. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream” by Maria Dahvana Headley. © by Maria Dahvana Headley. Originally published in Lightspeed, March 7. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Arbeitskraft” by Nick Mamatas © by Nick Mamatas. Originally published in The Mammoth Book of Steampunk. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight” by Xia Jia. © by Xia Jia. Originally published in Clarkesworld, February. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Heaven Under Earth” by Aliette de Bodard. © by Aliette de Bodard. Originally published in Electric Velocipede, Summer. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Sunshine” by Nina Allan © by Nina Allan. Originally published in Black Static, July-August. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Uncle Flower’s Homecoming Waltz” by Marissa K. Lingen. © by Marissa K. Lingen. Originally published in Tor.com, February. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Magician’s Apprentice” by Tamysn Muir. © by Tamsyn Muir. Originally published in Weird Tales, Winter. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Twenty-Two and You” by Michael Blumlein. © by Michael Blumlein. Originally published in F&SF, March-April. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Two Houses” by Kelly Link. © by Kelly Link. Originally published in Shadow Show. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Weight of History, the Lightness of the Future” by Jay Lake. © by Jay Lake. Originally published in Subterranean, Spring. Reprinted by permission of the author.
About the Editor
Rich Horton is an Associate Technical Fellow in Software for a major aerospace corporation. He is also a columnist for Locus and for Black Gate. He edits a series of Best of the Year anthologies for Prime Books, and also for Prime Books he has co-edited Robots: The Recent A.I. and War and Space: Recent Combat.