The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Introduction

  MATTHEW BAKER: Life Sentence

  S. P. SOMTOW: Another Avatar

  DEJI BRYCE OLUKOTUN: Between the Dark and the Dark

  KELLY BARNHILL: Thirty-Three Wicked Daughters

  ELIZABETH BEAR: Bullet Point

  GWENDOLYN KISTE: The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)

  CAROLINE M. YOACHIM: The Archronology of Love

  RION AMILCAR SCOTT: Shape-ups at Delilah’s

  TOBIAS S. BUCKELL: The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex

  CHARLIE JANE ANDERS: The Bookstore at the End of America

  NIBEDITA SEN: Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island

  JAYMEE GOH: The Freedom of the Shifting Sea

  ADAM-TROY CASTRO: Sacrid’s Pod

  CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL: Canst Thou Draw Out the Leviathan

  KEN LIU: Thoughts and Prayers

  E. LILY YU: The Time Invariance of Snow

  ANIL MENON: The Robots of Eden

  ELIZABETH BEAR: Erase, Erase, Erase

  REBECCA ROANHORSE: A Brief Lesson in Native American Astronomy

  VICTOR LAVALLE: Up from Slavery

  Contributors’ Notes

  Other Notable Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories of 2019

  Read More from the Best American Series

  About the Editors

  Connect with HMH

  Footnotes

  Copyright © 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

  Introduction copyright © 2020 by Diana Gabaldon

  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 prior 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 identified herein. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

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

  ISBN 978-1-328-61310-3 (print)  ISBN 978-1-328-61886-3 (ebook)

  v1.1020

  Cover image © TorriPhoto / Getty

  “The Bookstore at the End of America” by Charlie Jane Anders. First published in A People’s Future of the United States, Penguin Random House. Copyright © 2019 by Charlie Jane Anders. Reprinted by permission of Charlie Jane Anders.

  “Life Sentence” by Matthew Baker. First published in Lightspeed Magazine, February 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Matthew Baker. Reprinted by permission of Matthew Baker.

  “Thirty-Three Wicked Daughters” by Kelly Barnhill. First published in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Kelly Barnhill. Reprinted by permission of Kelly Barnhill.

  “Bullet Point” by Elizabeth Bear. First published in Wastelands 3: The New Apocalypse, June 4, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Wishnevsky Lynch. Reprinted by permission of Sarah Wishnevsky Lynch.

  “Erase, Erase, Erase” by Elizabeth Bear. First published in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Wishnevsky Lynch. Reprinted by permission of Sarah Wishnevsky Lynch.

  “The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex” by Tobias S. Buckell. First published in New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, ed. Nisi Shawl, Solaris Books. Copyright © 2019 by Tobias S. Buckell. Reprinted by permission of Tobias S. Buckell.

  “Canst Thou Draw Out the Leviathan” by Christopher Caldwell. First published in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 28, April 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Christopher Caldwell. Reprinted by permission of Christopher Caldwell.

  “Sacrid’s Pod” by Adam-Troy Castro. First published in Lightspeed Magazine, September 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Adam-Troy Castro. Reprinted by permission of Adam-Troy Castro.

  “The Freedom of the Shifting Sea” by Jaymee Goh. First published in New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, ed. Nisi Shawl, Solaris Books. Copyright © 2019 by Jaymee Goh. Reprinted by permission of Jaymee Goh.

  “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)” by Gwendolyn Kiste. First published in Nightmare Magazine, November 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Gwendolyn Kiste. Reprinted by permission of Gwendolyn Kiste.

  “Up from Slavery” by Victor LaValle. First published in Weird Tales Magazine #363, August 28, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Victor LaValle. Reprinted by permission of Victor LaValle.

  “Thoughts and Prayers” by Ken Liu. First published in Future Tense Fiction-Slate, January 26, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Ken Liu. Reprinted by permission of Ken Liu.

  “The Robots of Eden” by Anil Menon. First published in New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, ed. Nisi Shawl, Solaris Books. Copyright © 2019 by Anil Menon. Reprinted by permission of Anil Menon.

  “Between the Dark and the Dark” by Deji Bryce Olukotun. First published in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 109, June 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Deji Bryce Olukotun. Reprinted by permission of Deji Bryce Olukotun.

  “A Brief Lesson in Native American Astronomy” by Rebecca Roanhorse. First published in The Mythic Dream, September 17, 2019. From Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. Copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Roanhorse. Reprinted with the permission of Saga Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and KT Literary.

  “Shape-ups at Delilah’s” by Rion Amilcar Scott. First published in The New Yorker, October 7, 2019. Copyright © 2019 Rion Amilcar Scott. Reprinted by permission of Rion Amilcar Scott.

  “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island” by Nibedita Sen. First published in Nightmare Magazine, May 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Nibedita Sen. Reprinted by permission of Nibedita Sen.

  “Another Avatar” by S. P. Somtow. First published in Amazing Stories, Volume 77, Issue I. Copyright © 2019 by Somtow Sucharitkul. Reprinted by permission of Somtow Sucharitkul writing as S. P. Somtow.

  “The Archronology of Love” by Caroline M. Yoachim. First published in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 107, April 1, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Caroline M. Yoachim. Reprinted by permission of Caroline M. Yoachim.

  “The Time Invariance of Snow” by E. Lily Yu. First published in Tor.com. Copyright © 2019 by E. Lily Yu. Reprinted by permission of E. Lily Yu.

  Foreword

  Welcome to year six of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. This volume presents the best science fiction and fantasy (SF/F) short stories published during the 2019 calendar year as selected by myself and guest editor Diana Gabaldon.

  About This Year’s Guest Editor

  Diana Gabaldon is the New York Times No. 1 best-selling author of the Outlander series, which has more than thirty-five million copies in print worldwide and is the basis for a current hit show on the St
arz network (on which she serves as a consultant). Eight volumes have been published so far, and the ninth, Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone, is coming soon. There are also volumes one and two of The Outlandish Companion, a compendium of characters and lore for the Outlander series.

  Diana is not exactly known for short work—her novels tend to be fairly mammoth tomes, and she doesn’t often write short fiction (and when she does, it’s normally novella or near-novella length)—but she’s a writer who’s been in the science fiction and fantasy field from the start of her career, though often seen as existing outside of it. Partly because of that perceived “outsider” status, and because she’s not normally associated with short fiction, I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of selections a writer such as she would choose. (And boy, was it a good idea—we’ve got quite an array of stories this year.) She’s one of the most voracious readers I’ve encountered during my time in publishing (and that’s saying a lot), which factored into her selection as well, though when you read her introduction to this volume you’ll see that her connection to short fiction goes back much farther and deeper than might have been known or expected.

  Most of Diana’s short work is part of the Outlander series or the other series she’s most known for—the Lord John Grey series, which is itself part of the Outlander series and numbers nine volumes to date (including several novellas). Some of her novellas have been published as stand-alone books, but she’s also published in a range of anthologies, including Songs of Love and Death, Warriors, Legends II, Dangerous Women, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, and Down These Strange Streets. Her stories are in two Arthurian anthologies: Excalibur and Out of Avalon, and a satirical story, coauthored with her son Sam Sykes, is included in the anthology The Dragon Book. Collections of her work include A Trail of Fire and Seven Stones to Stand or Fall. She is also the author of a graphic novel, The Exile.

  In addition to her writerly qualifications, Diana has degrees in marine biology and zoology, as well as a PhD in quantitative behavioral ecology; she spent more than a decade as a university professor. She was the founding editor of the journal Science Software Quarterly and has written textbooks and scientific articles. You know, when I heard that Diana Gabaldon had multiple degrees and a PhD, I thought: Sure, sure, that makes sense. But I never would have guessed the subjects of those degrees.1 Or that she’d been a computing expert who founded a science journal. Or that in her twenties she wrote several comics for Disney featuring Scrooge McDuck and other Disney properties.

  All that is to say: Diana clearly contains multitudes. As do the stories she chose for this year’s volume. It’s a varied and fascinating selection, and I expect readers will be just as excited about this crop of stories as Diana and I are.

  Selection Criteria and Process

  The stories chosen for this anthology were originally published between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2019. 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 e-book); (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 meets the above selection criteria. After doing all of my reading, I created a list of what I felt were the top eighty stories (forty science fiction and forty fantasy) published in the genre. Those eighty stories—hereinafter referred to as the “Top 80”—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 reads all of 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 appear in this volume; the remaining sixty stories are listed in the back of this book as “Notable Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories of 2019.”

  2019 Summation

  In order to select the Top 80 stories published in the SF/F genres in 2019, I read and considered several thousand stories from a wide range of anthologies, collections, and magazines—basically, wherever there are stories, you’ll find me there waiting to read them. As always, it was a tough process to decide which stories would make the cut, and so I ended up with several dozen stories that, in the end, were on the outside looking in, but nonetheless were excellent works.

  The Top 80 this year was drawn from thirty-one different publications: twenty periodicals, nine anthologies, and two single-author collections (or, rather, one collection and one trilogy omnibus that included a bonus story). The final table of contents draws from thirteen different sources: nine periodicals and four anthologies. Lightspeed had the most selections (four); the anthology New Suns had three; and Nightmare and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction two each.

  Six of the authors included in this volume (Adam-Troy Castro, Caroline M. Yoachim, Charlie Jane Anders, E. Lily Yu, Jaymee Goh, and Tobias S. Buckell) previously appeared in BASFF; the remaining authors are appearing for the first time. Sofia Samatar (not included in this volume) still has the most BASFF appearances all-time with four; Castro, Yoachim, Anders, and Yu have appeared in BASFF three times now, and this is the second appearance for Buckell and Goh.

  This year marks the first appearances of two periodicals in our table of contents, both of which are long-storied genre publications that have died and been brought back to life more than once: Amazing Stories and Weird Tales. They are among those periodicals appearing in the Top 80 for the first time this year, and joining them on that list are Anathema and PodCastle.

  E. Lily Yu had the most stories in the Top 80 this year, with three; several authors had two each: A. T. Greenblatt, Elizabeth Bear (both of hers were selections), L. D. Lewis, N. K. Jemisin, Rebecca Roanhorse, Sam J. Miller, Tobias S. Buckell, and Veronica Roth. Overall, seventy authors are represented in the Top 80.

  Gwendolyn Kiste’s story selected for inclusion, “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary),” won the Bram Stoker Award (she won an additional Stoker for her nonfiction writing). Caroline M. Yoachim’s story, “The Archronology of Love,” was named a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula awards. Nibedita Sen’s story, “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island,” was also a finalist for both awards, and Sen was a finalist for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

  Among the Notable Stories, three were finalists for the Hugo Award: N. K. Jemisin’s “Emergency Skin,” Rivers Solomon’s “Blood Is Another Word for Hunger,” and Ted Chiang’s “Omphalos.” Mimi Mondal’s “His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light,” A. C. Wise’s “How the Trick Is Done,” Karen Osborne’s “The Dead, in Their Uncontrollable Power,” and A. T. Greenblatt’s “Give the Family My Love” were finalists for the Nebula Award.

  Note: The final results of some of the awards mentioned above won’t be known until after this text goes to press. The Sturgeon and Locus award finalists had not been announced at the time of writing, presumably due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  Anthologies

  The following anthologies all had stories selected for inclusion in this year’s volume: A People’s Future of the United States, edited by Victor LaValle and yours truly; New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl (three selections!); The Mythic Dream, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe; and Wastelands: The New Apocalypse, edited by me.

  Several other anthologi
es had stories in the Top 80: Forward, edited by Blake Crouch; Echoes, edited by Ellen Datlow; Current Futures, edited by Ann VanderMeer; If This Goes On, edited by Cat Rambo; and Mission Critical, edited by Jonathan Strahan. The anthologies with the most stories in the Top 80 were the aforementioned New Suns (seven) and A People’s Future of the United States (six); Forward and The Mythic Dream had three each; Echoes and Wastelands: The New Apocalypse had two each.

  As always, there’s a plethora of fine work published across a wide range of anthologies, but there isn’t always room in the Top 80 for even very good anthologies to be represented. Here’s a list of some of the anthologies that featured excellent work but nonetheless didn’t quite manage to crack the Top 80: Hex Life, edited by Christopher Golden and Rachel Autumn Deering; My Name Was Never Frankenstein, edited by Bryan Furuness; The Weight of Light, edited by Joey Eschrich and Clark A. Miller; Do Not Go Quietly, edited by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner; The Twisted Book of Shadows, edited by Christopher Golden and James A. Moore; Temporally Deactivated, edited by David B. Coe and Joshua Palmatier; and His Hideous Heart, edited by Dahlia Adler.

  Collections

  The standout collection from 2019 was—clearly, in my mind—Ted Chiang’s Exhalation, which included the stunning originals “Omphalos” and “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom” (both of which are finalists for the Hugo Award); the former is in the Top 80, while the latter was too long to be considered. Strangely, this year only one other collection had a story in the Top 80 . . . and it’s not even really a collection: it’s a trilogy omnibus that also included an original short story set in the same world; I’m referring to Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor, which produced the fine story “Binti: Sacred Fire.”

  Other 2019 collections also included excellent work. Some of these contained only reprints, and thus were excluded from consideration, but I note them anyway in order to shine a light on them: Snow White Learns Witchcraft, by Theodora Goss; The History of Soul 2065, by Barbara Krasnoff; And Go Like This: Stories, by John Crowley; The City and the Cygnets, by Michael Bishop; The Girls with Kaleidoscope Eyes, by Howard V. Hendrix; Truer Love and Other Lies, by Edd Vick; All Worlds Are Real, by Susan Palwick; The Arcana of Maps, by Jessica Reisman; Memory’s Children, by Samuel Peralta; A Cathedral of Myth and Bone, by Kat Howard; Laughter at the Academy, by Seanan McGuire; and Hexarchate Stories, by Yoon Ha Lee. And not to forget perhaps the most surprising collection I discovered all year—that being Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, which also happens to be just about my favorite title of the year.