The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016 Edition

by Rich Horton

“I liked your book,” Gideon ventured. “Both of them.”

  Her head snapped up. She searched his eyes, suspicious of mockery and more than ready to slam the door in his face. Once there though, she was caught. Caught, speared, roasted, and served up with an apple in her mouth. It was like she had never looked into his eyes before. Like falling into a softly beaming black light. Like descending into a natural hot spring under the full dark of evening as a warm rain fell all around her.

  Analise blinked and realized she had forgotten to breathe. She decided that looking at her feet was safest. Her feet were bare. She needed to cut her toenails. He was speaking again.

  “Ana.”

  Why was his voice like a caress? She was used to his voice driving icicles through her ears.

  “Do you think you’ll ever come back to Seafall?”

  Analise shrugged. She scratched her nose where her hair had tickled it. She should have combed her hair, she thought. It was all over everywhere. A feather from her pillow floated in one of her curls. Irritably, she plucked it out.

  “The landlord let your room. I brought your things into mine.” He smiled. Just barely. She noticed the twitch of his lips through her eyelashes. “Hence, the hotplate. If you did come back to Seafall, you’d have to stay with me. At least for a while. However long you’d like. You’d be welcome, of course. Most welcome.”

  At the soft, fervent note in those last syllables, Analise involuntarily glanced at him.

  Bad decision. Very dangerous. Caught. Again.

  “Or,” he said. “I could stay here. If you wanted me.”

  It will never be safe, Analise thought, to meet his gaze. It will never be safe to wake to him smiling at her like that, solemn with hope. If his expression were anymore open, she could walk right through it.

  Gideon set the crate of toilet paper down by the door and laid his palm flat against the screen. Analise wanted to lean her forehead against the indentation his hand made.

  “I often have trouble sleeping, Ana. It’s worse now that I can’t hear you breathing through our wall. I lie in bed and imagine you beside me, your hair upon my pillow. I turn to you, though you are dreaming and all unaware, and I count every hair on your head, strand by strand, fire by fire. I count until my eyes can bear no more of your brightness, and in their own defense my eyelids let loose their portcullis and shut fast against my vision of you.”

  She shook her head. “Gideon—”

  “It has to be better,” Gideon reflected, “than counting sheep.”

  He let his hand fall from the screen and stepped backwards toward the porch steps. “I wanted to thank you,” he said, “for saving me. I don’t know why you did. I didn’t deserve it. I’m sorry for everything. I adore you. I always have.”

  When he turned and moved to take the steps down, down to the rusty jalopy and to the dirt road that would take him away from her and back to Seafall, Analise banged open the screen door and sprang onto the porch. She grabbed him by the back of his suspenders and yanked. He turned into her embrace, his kisses landing first on her neck, the line of her jaw, her ear, her chin, until she held his head still between her hands and pressed her mouth to his. And both felt again as though starlight flashed between their lips, shimmering on their tongues and sparkling like champagne, though this time neither bore so much as a seed of Gentry magic between them.

  “All right, Gideon,” Analise said against his mouth, sliding her hands from his face to his shoulders to his shirt collar, which she clutched, tugging him closer to her. “All right. You can come in.”

  She pointed to the crate by the porch. “Bring that.”

  Biographies

  “Mutability,” published in the June 2015 issue of Asimov’s, marked Ray Nayler’s debut as a writer of science fiction. Other short stories by Ray have been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Deathrealm, and the Berkeley Fiction Review, among others, and have twice been mentioned in Best American Mystery Stories volumes. Ray was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkmenistan. He has lived and worked extensively in the Central Asian Republics and in Russia. He is a Foreign Service Officer. His most recent posting was to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. His next posting is to Baku, Azerbaijan.

  Brooke Bolander has had stories featured in Lightspeed, Nightmare, Strange Horizons, Reflection’s Edge, and many other fine word-venues. Originally from the deepest, darkest regions of the Southern US, she attended the University of Leicester from 2004 to 2007 studying History and Archaeology and is a graduate of the 2011 Clarion Writers’ Workshop at UCSD. She currently resides in the borough of Brooklyn, known for its bridges and dodging.

  Naomi Kritzer’s short stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and many other magazines and websites. Her five published novels are available online, along with two e-book short story collections: Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories, and Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories. Naomi lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her husband, two daughters, and several cats. You can find her blog at naomikritzer.wordpress.com.

  Geoff Ryman is Senior Lecturer in School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester. He is the author of several works of science fiction and literary fiction as well as short stories author and an interactive web novel. His work has won numerous awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award (twice), the James W. Tiptree Memorial Award, the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, the World Fantasy Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award (twice) and the Canadian Sunburst Award (twice). In 2012 he won a Nebula Award for his Nigeria-set novelette “What We Found.” His novel Air was listed in The Guardian’s 1000 Novels You Must Read.

  Catherynne M. Valente is the New York Times bestselling author of over two dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Palimpsest, the Orphan’s Tales series, Deathless, Radiance, and the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Own Making. She is the winner of the Andre Norton, Tiptree, Mythopoeic, Rhysling, Lambda, Locus and Hugo awards. She has been a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with a small but growing menagerie of beasts, some of which are human.

  John Barnes has thirty-one commercially published and two self-published novels, some of them to his credit, along with hundreds of magazine articles, short stories, paid blog posts, and encyclopedia articles. Most of his life he has written professionally, and for much of it he has been some kind of teacher, and in between he has held a large number of odd jobs involving math, show business, politics, and marketing, which have more in common than you’d think. He is married and lives in Denver.

  Seth Dickinson is the author of The Traitor Baru Cormorant and more than a dozen short stories. During his time in the social sciences, he worked on cocoa farming in Ghana, political rumor control, and simulations built to study racial bias in police shootings. He wrote much of the lore and flavor for Bungie Studios’ smash hit Destiny. If he were an animal, he would be a cockatoo.

  C.C. Finlay is the author of four novels, a collection, and dozens of stories, with work translated into sixteen languages. In January 2015 he became the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He lives in Arizona with his wife, novelist Rae Carson. He can be found on twitter @ccfinlay or on the web at ccfinlay.com.

  Yoon Ha Lee’s works have appeared in Tor.com, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and other venues. His space opera novel Ninefox Gambit is forthcoming from Solaris Books in June 2016. He lives in Louisiana with his family and an extremely lazy cat, and has not yet been eaten by gators.

  Kelly Link’s most recent collection is Get in Trouble. She is also the author of Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners and Pretty Monsters. She is the co-founder of Small Beer Press. Her short stories have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, A Public Space, Tin House, McSweeney’s, T
he Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. Link was born in Miami, Florida, and she currently lives with her husband and daughter in Northampton, Massachusetts.

  Will Ludwigsen’s work, described as “hauntingly beautiful” by Publishers Weekly, appears in magazines like Asimov’s Science Fiction and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine as well as in his most recent Shirley Jackson Award-nominated collection In Search Of and Others. When he is not peering into tree stumps at the abyssal frontiers of weird mystery, he’s squinting out of the windshield at traffic in Jacksonville, Florida where he lives with his partner, writer Aimee Payne. He blogs at www.will-ludwigsen.com and tweets as @Will_Ludwigsen.

  Vonda N. McIntyre writes science fiction. “Little Sisters” is by way of a companion piece to the Nebula-nominated “Little Faces.” McIntyre’s work has won the Nebula, the Hugo, the Locus, and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Awards.

  In 2002, Hao Jingfang was awarded First Prize in the New Concept Writing Competition. She gained her undergraduate degree from Tsinghua University’s Department of Physics and her Ph.D. from the same university in Economics and Management in 2012. Her fiction has appeared in various publications, including Mengya, Science Fiction World, and ZUI Found. She has published two full-length novels, Wandering Maearth and Return to Charon; a book of cultural essays, Europe in Time; and the short story collection, Star Travellers.

  Ken Liu (kenliu.name) is an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards, he has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among other places. He also translated the Hugo-winning novel, The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin, which is the first translated novel to win that award. Ken’s debut novel, The Grace of Kings, the first in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, was published by Saga Press in April 2015. Saga will also publish a collection of his short stories, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, in March 2016. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

  Rich Larson was born in West Africa, has studied in Rhode Island and worked in Spain, and at twenty-three now writes from Edmonton, Alberta. His short work has been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon and appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies, as well as in magazines such as Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Interzone, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed and Apex. Find him at richwlarson.tumblr.com

  Simon Ings is a novelist and writer of popular histories, currently working on the story of the Soviet science under Stalin. He began his career writing science fiction stories, novels and films, before widening his brief to explore perception (The Eye, Bloomsbury), 20th-century radical politics (The Weight of Numbers, Atlantic), the shipping system (Dead Water, Corvus) and augmented reality (Wolves, Gollancz). He co-founded and edited Arc Magazine, a digital publication about the future, before joining New Scientist as its arts editor. Out of the office, he lives in possibly the coldest flat in London, writing op-eds and reviews for the Guardian, Times, Telegraph, Independent and Nature.

  Nike Sulway is a Queensland writer. She is the author of Rupetta, The Bone Flute, and The True Green of Hope. her most recent novel, released in 2016, is Dying in the First Person. She has won and been shortlisted for several awards, including the 2013 James Tiptree, Jr literary award.

  Alvaro Zinos-Amaro was born in Spain and earned a BS in Theoretical Physics from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. Alvaro is co-author, with Robert Silverberg, of When the Blue Shift Comes, and is currently at work on Traveler of Worlds: Conversations with Robert Silverberg (forthcoming 2016). Alvaro’s stories, poems, reviews and essays have appeared in markets like Asimov’s, Analog, Apex, Clarkesworld, Nature, Strange Horizons, Galaxy’s Edge, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and anthologies such as The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Moriarty and The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories.

  Genevieve Valentine has written Mechanique, The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, and Persona; its sequel, Icon, is forthcoming in June 2016. She has written Catwoman for DC Comics, and is the writer of Xena: Warrior Princess from Dynamite. Her short fiction has appeared in several Best of the Year anthologies. Her essays and reviews have appeared at NPR.org, The AV Club, io9.com, LA Review of Books, and The New York Times.

  John Kessel is the author of the novels Good News from Outer Space and Corrupting Dr. Nice and, with James Patrick Kelly, Freedom Beach. His story collections are Meeting in Infinity, The Pure Product, and The Baum Plan for Financial Independence. His fiction has received the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the James Tiptree Jr. Award, and two Nebula Awards. With Kelly, he has edited six anthologies of stories re-visioning contemporary short speculative fiction, most recently Digital Rapture: The Singularity Anthology. Kessel teaches American literature and fiction writing at North Carolina State University.

  Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus, and Campbell Award winning author of nearly thirty novels (the most recent is Karen Memory, a Weird West adventure from Tor) and over a hundred short stories. She lives in Massachusetts.

  Joe Pitkin has lived, taught, and studied in England, Hungary, Mexico, and most recently at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington. His fiction has appeared in Analog, Podcastle, Drabblecast, and elsewhere. He has done biological field work on the slopes of Mount St. Helens, and he lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and daughters. You can follow his work at his blog, The Subway Test: thesubwaytest.wordpress.com

  Rebecca Campbell is a Canadian writer and academic, as well as a graduate of Clarion West (2015). NeWest Press published her first novel, The Paradise Engine, in 2013. You can find her online at whereishere.ca

  Chaz Brenchley has been making a living as a writer since the age of eighteen. He is the author of nine thrillers, two fantasy series, two ghost stories, and two collections, most recently Bitter Waters. As Daniel Fox, he has published a Chinese-based fantasy series; as Ben Macallan, an urban fantasy series. A British Fantasy Award winner, he has also published books for children, two novellas and more than five hundred short stories. He has recently married and moved from Newcastle to California, with two squabbling cats and a famous teddy bear.

  Seanan McGuire lives and works primarily in Northern California, although she can be found in random spots around the globe, pursuing the ideal of the perfect corn maze. Her debut novel was published in 2009; since then, she has finished and released more than twenty-five books, proving that she probably really needs a nap. She won the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and has been nominated several times for the Hugo Award. When not writing, Seanan watches too many horror movies and spends time with her enormous blue Maine Coon cats. She reads almost constantly, and drinks far too much Diet Dr Pepper. Seanan regularly claims to be the vanguard of an invading race of alien plant people. As she gives little reason to doubt her, most people just go with it. Keep up with her at www.seananmcguire.com.

  Gregory Norman Bossert is an author, filmmaker, and musician, currently based just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. He won the 2013 World Fantasy Award, and was a finalist for the 2014 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. When not writing, he wrangles spaceships and superheroes for Industrial Light & Magic. More information on his writing, films, and music is available at SuddenSound.com and on his blog GregoryNormanBossert.com.

  Tamsyn Muir is a writer from Auckland, New Zealand. Her short-form fiction has appeared in such publications as Nightmare Magazine, Weird Tales, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Clarkesworld.

  Ian McDonald writes mostly science fiction. He lives just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland. His first novel, Desolation Road was published in 1988, his most recent, Luna: New Moon came out in 2015 from Tor in the US, Gollancz in the UK. Forthcoming is Luna:2. He’s won some prizes.

  Andy Dudak’s stories
have appeared in Analog, Apex, Clarkesworld, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, Not One of Us, and many other venues. He is currently recovering from learning Mandarin.

  C.S.E. Cooney is the author of Bone Swans: Stories (Mythic Delirium 2015), The Breaker Queen (first installment of the Dark Breakers series), The Witch in the Almond Tree, and Jack o’ the Hills. She is an audiobook narrator for Tantor Media and the singer/songwriter Brimstone Rhine. Her Rhysling Award-winning poem “The Sea King’s Second Bride” is featured in her collection How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes, and her short fiction may found in Strange Horizons, Apex, GigaNotoSaurus, Clockwork Phoenix 3 & 5, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, and elsewhere.

  Recommended Reading

  “Ruins”, Eleanor Arnason (Old Venus)

  “Telling Stories to the Sky”, Eleanor Arnason (F&SF, 1-2/15)

  “La Héron”, Charlotte Ashley (F&SF, 3-4/15)

  “1Up”, Holly Black (Press Start to Play)

  “The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss”, David Brin (Old Venus)

  “Ratcatcher”, Tobias Buckell, (Xenowealth: A Collection)

  Penric’s Demon, Lois McMaster Bujold (Penric’s Demon)

  Teaching the Dog to Read, Jonathan Carroll (Subterranean)

  “The Tarn”, Rob Chilson (Analog, 7-8/15)

  “Hold-Time Variations”, John Chu (Tor.com, 10/15)

  “The Bone Swans of Amandale”, C.S.E. Cooney (Bone Swans)

  “Rates of Change”, James S.A. Corey (Meeting Infinity)

  “Three Cups of Grief, By Starlight”, Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld, 1/15)

  “Her First Harvest”, Malcolm Devlin, (Interzone, 5-6/15)

  “Samsara and Ice”, Andy Dudak (Analog, 1-2/15)

  “Madeleine”, Amal El-Mohtar (Lightspeed, 6/15)

  “Biology at the End of the World”, Brenda Cooper (Asimov’s, 9/15)

  “Iron Pegasus”, Brenda Cooper (Mission: Tomorrow)

  “The Servant”, Emily Devenport (Clarkesworld, 8/15)