The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Introduction

  CHARLES PAYSEUR: Rivers Run Free

  KATE ALICE MARSHALL: Destroy the City with Me Tonight

  KATHLEEN KAYEMBE: You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych

  LETTIE PRELL: Justice Systems in Quantum Parallel Probabilities

  CADWELL TURNBULL: Loneliness Is in Your Blood

  SAMUEL R. DELANY: The Hermit of Houston

  JAYMEE GOH: The Last Cheng Beng Gift

  A. MERC RUSTAD: Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn

  CARMEN MARIA MACHADO: The Resident

  RACHAEL K. JONES: The Greatest One-Star Restaurant in the Whole Quadrant

  GWENDOLYN CLARE: Tasting Notes on the Varietals of the Southern Coast

  CHARLIE JANE ANDERS: Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue

  MICAH DEAN HICKS: Church of Birds

  PETER WATTS: ZeroS

  CAROLINE M. YOACHIM: Carnival Nine

  E. LILY YU: The Wretched and the Beautiful

  MARIA DAHVANA HEADLEY: The Orange Tree

  MAUREEN MCHUGH: Cannibal Acts

  MARIA DAHVANA HEADLEY: Black Powder

  TOBIAS S. BUCKELL: Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance

  Contributors’ Notes

  Notable Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories of 2017

  Read More from the Best American Series

  About the Editors

  Connect with HMH

  Copyright © 2018 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

  Introduction copyright © 2018 by N. K. Jemisin

  All rights reserved

  The Best American Series® is a registered trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy™ is a trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. With the exception of nonprofit transcription in Braille, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is not authorized to grant permission for further uses of copyrighted selections reprinted in this book without the permission of their owners. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein. Address requests for permission to make copies of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt material to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhco.com

  ISSN 2573-0797 (print)  ISSN 2573-0800 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-1-328-83456-0 (print)  ISBN 978-1-328-83453-9 (ebook)

  Cover design by Mark R. Robinson © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  Cover illustration © Julie Dillon

  Jemisin photograph © Laura Hanifin, 2015

  v1.0918

  “Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue” by Charlie Jane Anders. First published in Boston Review: Global Dystopias. Copyright © 2017 by Charlie Jane Anders. Reprinted by permission of Charlie Jane Anders.

  “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance” by Tobias S. Buckell. First published in Cosmic Powers by Saga Press, April 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Tobias S. Buckell. Reprinted by permission of Tobias S. Buckell.

  “Tasting Notes on the Varietals of the Southern Coast” by Gwendolyn Clare. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Gwendolyn Clare Williams. Reprinted by permission of Gwendolyn Clare Williams.

  “The Hermit of Houston” by Samuel R. Delany. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Samuel R. Delany. Reprinted by permission of Samuel R. Delany and his agents Henry Morrison, Inc.

  “The Last Cheng Beng Gift” by Jaymee Goh. First published in Lightspeed Magazine, September 2017, Issue 88. Copyright © 2017 by Jaymee Goh. Reprinted by permission of Jaymee Goh.

  “Black Powder” by Maria Dahvana Headley. First published in The Djinn Falls in Love, March 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Maria Dahvana Headley. Reprinted by permission of Maria Dahvana Headley.

  “The Orange Tree” by Maria Dahvana Headley. First published in The Weight of Words, December 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Maria Dahvana Headley. Reprinted by permission of Subterranean Press.

  “Church of Birds” by Micah Dean Hicks. First published in Kenyon Review, March/April 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Kenyon Review. Reprinted by permission of Micah Dean Hicks.

  “The Greatest One-Star Restaurant in the Whole Quadrant” by Rachael K. Jones. First published in Lightspeed Magazine, December 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Rachael K. Jones. Reprinted by permission of Rachael K. Jones.

  “You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych” by Kathleen Kayembe. First published in Nightmare Magazine, March 2017, Issue 54. Copyright © 2017 by Kathleen Kayembe. Reprinted by permission of Kathleen Kayembe.

  “The Resident” by Carmen Maria Machado. First published in Her Body and Other Parties: Stories. Copyright © 2017 by Carmen Maria Machado. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

  “Destroy the City with Me Tonight” by Kate Alice Marshall. First published in Behind the Mask. Copyright © 2017 by Kathleen Marshall. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Cannibal Acts” by Maureen McHugh. First published in Boston Review: Global Dystopias. Copyright © 2017 by Maureen McHugh. Reprinted by permission of Maureen McHugh.

  “Rivers Run Free” by Charles Payseur. First published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, July 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Charles Payseur. Reprinted by permission of Charles Payseur.

  “Justice Systems in Quantum Parallel Probabilities” by Lettie Prell. First published in Clarkesworld Magazine, January 2017, Issue 124. Copyright © 2017 by Lettie Prell. Reprinted by permission of Lettie Prell.

  “Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn” by A. Merc Rustad. First published in Humans Wanted. Copyright © 2017 by Merc Rustad. Reprinted by permission of Merc Rustad.

  “Loneliness Is in Your Blood” by Cadwell Turnbull. First published in Nightmare Magazine, January 2017, Issue 52. Copyright © 2017 by Cadwell Turnbull. Reprinted by permission of Cadwell Turnbull.

  “ZeroS” by Peter Watts. First published in Infinity Wars. Copyright © 2017 by Peter Watts. Reprinted by permission of Peter Watts.

  “Carnival Nine” by Caroline M. Yoachim. First published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 2017. Copyright © 2017 by Caroline M. Yoachim. Reprinted by permission of Caroline M. Yoachim.

  “The Wretched and the Beautiful” by E. Lily Yu. First published in Terraform, February 2017. Copyright © 2017 by E. Lily Yu. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Foreword

  Welcome to year four of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy! This volume presents the best science fiction and fantasy (SF/F) short stories published during the 2017 calendar year as selected by myself and guest editor N. K. Jemisin.

  In recent years, Nora has basically set the genre on fire.

  In 2016 and 2017, her novel The Fifth Season and its sequel The Obelisk Gate both won the Hugo Award for best novel, making her one of only three writers who have ever won the best novel Hugo two years in a row (joining Orson Scott Card and Lois McMaster Bujold). Both of those books were also finalists for the Nebula and World Fantasy Aw
ards, and as I write this, in May, the final installment in that trilogy, The Stone Sky, just won the Nebula Award and was named a finalist for the Hugo Award. (World Fantasy finalists have not been announced yet.) If The Stone Sky wins the Hugo this year, Nora will be the only person ever to win in the best novel category three years in a row. (The result will be known by the time this book is published, but not before we lock the text for publication.)

  Nora first achieved the trifecta of having a book nominated for all three of the abovementioned awards in 2011 with her debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (which won the Locus Award). The Killing Moon in 2013 was nominated for both the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, and her story “Non-Zero Probabilities” was nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula in 2010. So she’s had a real knack not only for writing award-worthy stuff but for generating a genuine consensus among the different award bodies that her work is truly among the best of the year.

  And so after writing a significant portion of what many readers and critics have considered the best works of the year on an annual basis, it seems pretty fitting that she now gets to weigh in editorially as well. But this is not her first go at showcasing the finest works of the genre; indeed, until just recently she was the science fiction/fantasy book reviewer for a little newspaper you might have heard of called the New York Times.

  In addition to all of the above accolades, which mostly focus on her novel-length work, she is an accomplished short fiction writer as well, with short stories published in a wide variety of publications, such as Strange Horizons, Lightspeed Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Wired, Fantasy Magazine, Tor.com, Clarkesworld Magazine, Popular Science, Escape Pod, and Weird Tales, as well as in anthologies such as Epic: Legends of Fantasy; After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia; Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories; The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year (Strahan, ed.); and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror (Guran, ed.); not to mention last year’s edition of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. If you haven’t read a lot of her short fiction, now’s your chance: Orbit is publishing her first collection of short stories in November.

  You can learn more about her and her work at nkjemisin.com, and/or you can support her via Patreon (patreon.com/nkjemisin) to get an advance look at forthcoming book chapters and the occasional short story.

  The stories chosen for this anthology were originally published between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2017. The technical criteria for consideration are (1) original publication in a nationally distributed American or Canadian publication (i.e., periodicals, collections, or anthologies, in print, online, or ebook); (2) publication in English by writers who are American or Canadian, or who have made the United States their home; (3) publication as text (audiobook, podcast, dramatized, interactive, and other forms of fiction are not considered); (4) original publication as short fiction (excerpts of novels are not knowingly considered); (5) story length of 17,499 words or less; (6) at least loosely categorized as science fiction or fantasy; (7) publication by someone other than the author (i.e., self-published works are not eligible); and (8) publication as an original work of the author (i.e., not part of a media tie-in/licensed fiction program).

  As series editor, I attempted to read everything I could find that met these criteria. After doing all my reading, I created a list of what I felt were the top eighty stories published in the genre (forty science fiction and forty fantasy). Those eighty stories were sent to the guest editor, who read them and then chose the best twenty (ten science fiction, ten fantasy) for inclusion in the anthology. The guest editor read all the stories anonymously—with no bylines attached to them, nor any information about where the story originally appeared.

  The guest editor’s top twenty selections are included in this volume; the remaining sixty stories that did not make it into the anthology are listed in the back of this book as “Notable Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories of 2017.”

  As usual, in my effort to find the top stories of the year, I scoured the field to try to read and consider everything that was published. Though the bulk of my reading typically comes from periodicals, I always also read dozens of anthologies and single-author collections (this year, sixty-plus and thirty-plus, respectively).

  Here’s a sampling of the anthologies that published fine work that didn’t quite manage to make it into the table of contents or Notable Stories list but are worthwhile just the same: Adam’s Ladder, edited by Michael Bailey and Darren Speegle; All Hail Our Robot Conquerors, edited by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier; Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders, edited by Doug Murano; Black Feathers, edited by Ellen Datlow; Catalysts, Explorers & Secret Keepers, edited by Monica Louzon, Jake Weisfeld, Heather McHale, Barbara Jasny, and Rachel Frederick; Dark Cities, edited by Christopher Golden; Dark Screams, volumes six and seven, edited by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar; The Death of All Things, edited by Laura Anne Gilman and Kat Richardson; The Demons of King Solomon, edited by Aaron J. French; Infinite Stars, edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt; The Jurassic Chronicles, edited by Crystal Watanabe; Latin@ Rising, edited by Matthew David Goodwin; Mad Hatters and March Hares, edited by Ellen Datlow; Matchup, edited by Lee Child; Meanwhile, Elsewhere, edited by Cat Fitzpatrick and Casey Plett; Nevertheless, She Persisted, edited by Mindy Klasky; New Fears, edited by Mark Morris; Nights of the Living Dead, edited by George A. Romero and Jonathan Maberry; Oceans, edited by Jessica West; Ride the Star Wind, edited by Scott Gable and C. Dombrowski; Submerged, edited by S. C. Butler and Joshua Palmatier; Sycorax’s Daughters, edited by Kinitra Brooks; Tales from a Talking Board, edited by Ross E. Lockhart; and Where the Stars Rise, edited by Lucas K. Law and Derwin Mak.

  In addition to this, the anthologies Behind the Mask, edited by Tricia Reeks and Kyle Richardson; Cosmic Powers, edited by me; The Djinn Falls in Love, edited by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin; Global Dystopias, edited by Junot Díaz (published as a special issue of Boston Review, so it’s debatable whether or not this counts as an anthology); Humans Wanted, edited by Vivian Caethe; and Infinity Wars, edited by Jonathan Strahan, all contain stories represented in the table of contents in this volume, and several other anthologies have stories on the Notable Stories list, such as Chasing Shadows, edited by David Brin and Stephen W. Potts; Haunted Nights, edited by Ellen Datlow and Lisa Morton; Looming Low, edited by Justin Steele and Sam Cowan; Mech: Age of Steel, edited by Tim Marquitz and Melanie R. Meadors; Overview: Stories in the Stratosphere, edited by Michael G. Bennett, Joey Eschrich, and Ed Finn; Straight Outta Tombstone, edited by David Boop; The Sum of Us, edited by Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law; Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities, edited by Ed Finn and Joey Eschrich; The Book of Swords, edited by Gardner Dozois; and the XPRIZE Foundation’s Seat 14C, edited by Kathryn Cramer.

  I reviewed somewhere in the vicinity of thirty collections, about half of which contained no eligible material (either because they were all reprints or because the books or authors themselves were not eligible for consideration). The collection that set everyone’s mind ablaze in 2017 was clearly—and with good reason—Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado, being nominated for pretty much every major literary award one could think of, including the National Book Award; on top of that, it was the sole collection to provide one of the stories selected for this volume. Other collections that had stories on the Notable Stories list were The Language of Thorns, by Leigh Bardugo; Machine Learning, by Hugh Howey; Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman; Tender: Stories, by Sofia Samatar; The Voices of Martyrs, by Maurice Broaddus; and What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky, by Lesley Nneka Arimah. There was fine work to be found in several other collections, including Tales of Falling and Flying by Ben Loory; And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, by Gwendolyn Kiste; Speaking to Skull Kings and Other Stories, by Emily B. Cataneo; Fire, by Elizabeth Hand; So You Want to Be a Robot, by A. Merc Rustad; She Said Destroy, by Nadia Bulkin; The Overneath, by Peter S. Beagle; and Cat Pictures Please, by
Naomi Kritzer.

  As always, I surveyed more than a hundred different periodicals over the course of the year, and paid as much attention to major genre publications like Clarkesworld and Beneath Ceaseless Skies as I did to more recently founded markets like FIYAH and Diabolical Plots. Likewise I do my best to find any genre fiction lurking in the pages of mainstream/literary publications, which this year yielded notable stories from Kenyon Review (and a selection), Tin House, McSweeney’s, and Slate.

  The stories presented to the guest editor for consideration were drawn from forty-five different publications—twenty-two periodicals, sixteen anthologies, and seven single-author collections—from thirty-nine different editors (counting editorial teams as a singular unit). The final table of contents draws from fifteen different sources: eight periodicals, six anthologies, and one collection (from twelve different editors/editorial teams).

  This year marks the first appearance of two periodicals in our table of contents: Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Kenyon Review. Periodicals appearing on the Notable Stories list for the first time this year include Kenyon Review, Diabolical Plots, FIYAH, Omni, and Slate. (Note: I didn’t count Boston Review in the preceding list because Global Dystopias felt more like a separate anthology than an issue of the magazine, but feel free to count it if you disagree!)

  Six of the authors included in this volume (A. Merc Rustad, Carmen Maria Machado, Caroline M. Yoachim, Charlie Jane Anders, E. Lily Yu, and Maria Dahvana Headley) have previously appeared in BASFF; thus the remaining thirteen authors (thirteen rather than fourteen because Headley appears twice) are appearing for the first time.

  Maria Dahvana Headley had the most stories in my top eighty this year, with four (and of course had two stories selected for inclusion); Maurice Broaddus had three, and then several authors had two each: A. Merc Rustad, Cadwell Turnbull, Carmen Maria Machado, Charlie Jane Anders, Hugh Howey, Kathleen Kayembe, Maureen McHugh, and Rich Larson. Overall, sixty-six authors (counting collaborations as a single author) are represented in the top eighty.