The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-I Read online

  The Best Science Fiction

  and Fantasy of the Year

  Volume One

  Jonathan Strahan

  Copyright © 2007 by Jonathan Strahan

  This edition of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume One © 2007

  by Night Shade Books

  Cover art © 2006 by Stephan Martiniere

  Cover design by Claudia Noble

  Interior layout and design by Jeremy Lassen

  Introduction, story notes and arrangement

  by Jonathan Strahan. © 2007 Jonathan Strahan.

  First Edition

  ISBN10: 1-59780-068-6

  ISBN13: 978-1-59780-068-6

  Night Shade Books

  Please visit us on the web at

  www.nightshadebooks.com

  Publication History

  "How to Talk to Girls at Parties", by Neil Gaiman. © 2006 Neil Gaiman. Originally published in Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders (William Morrow). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "El Regalo", by Peter S. Beagle. © 2006 Peter S. Beagle. Originally published in The Line Between (Tachyon Publications). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "I, Row-Boat", by Cory Doctorow. © 2006 Cory Doctorow. Originally published in Flurb: A Webzine of Astonishing Tales, Issue #1, Fall 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "In the House of the Seven Librarians", by Ellen Klages. © 2006 Ellen Klages. Originally published in Firebirds Rising (Firebird/Penguin), Sharyn November ed. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Another Word for Map Is Faith", by Christopher Rowe. © 2006 Christopher Rowe. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 2006 . Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Under Hell, Over Heaven", by Margo Lanagan. © 2006 Margo Lanagan. Originally published in Red Spikes (Allen & Unwin Australia). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Incarnation Day", by Walter Jon Williams. © 2006 Walter Jon Williams. Originally published in Escape from Earth (SFBC), Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois eds. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Night Whiskey", by Jeffrey Ford. © 2006 Jeffrey Ford. Originally published in Salon Fantastique (Thunders Mouth), Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling eds. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "A Siege of Cranes", by Benjamin Rosenbaum. © 2006 Benjamin Rosenbaum. Originally published in Twenty Epics (All-Star Stories), David Moles & Susan Marie Groppi eds. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Halfway House", by Frances Hardinge. © 2006 Frances Hardinge. Originally published in Alchemy 3. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Bible Repairman", by Tim Powers. © 2006 Tim Powers. Originally published in The Bible Repairman (Subterranean Press). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Yellow Card Man", by Paolo Bacigalupi. © 2006 Paolo Bacigalupi. Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, December 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)", by Geoff Ryman. © 2006 Geoff Ryman. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October/November 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The American Dead", by Jay Lake. © 2006 Jay Lake. Originally published in Interzone 203, March/April 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Cartesian Theater", by Robert Charles Wilson. © 2006 Robert Charles Wilson. Originally published in Futureshocks (Penguin Roc), Lou Anders ed. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Journey into the Kingdom", by M. Rickert. © 2006 M. Rickert. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Eight Episodes", by Robert Reed. © 2006 Robert Reed. Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Wizards of Perfil", by Kelly Link. © 2006 Kelly Link. Originally published in Firebirds Rising (Firebird/Penguin), Sharyn November ed. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Saffron Gatherers", by Elizabeth Hand. © 2006 Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Saffron and Brimstone: Strange Stories (M Press). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "D.A.", by Connie Willis. © 2006 Connie Willis. Originally published in Space Cadets (SciFi Inc), Mike Resnick ed. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Femaville 29", by Paul Di Filippo. © 2006 Paul Di Filippo. Originally published in Salon Fantastique (Thunders Mouth), Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling eds. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Sob in the Silence", by Gene Wolfe. © 2006 Gene Wolfe. Originally published in Strange Birds (Dreamhaven). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The House Beyond Your Sky", by Benjamin Rosenbaum. © 2006 Benjamin Rosenbaum. Originally published in Strange Horizons, 4 September 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Djinn's Wife", by Ian McDonald. © 2006 Ian McDonald. Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  For Charles, friend and mentor, without whom it not only wouldn't be possible, it wouldn't be fun.

  Acknowledgements

  Any book like this one is as much the product of a small community of friends, family, and colleagues as it is the work of one person. This year I'd especially like to thank my new editors and publishers, Jason Williams and Jeremy Lassen, who have been a delight to work with, and whose confidence I greatly appreciate, and to Claudia Noble for her great work on the cover. Special thanks also go to CHARLES, Liza, Kirsten, Carolyn, Tim, Karlyn, Amelia at Locus Press, who really did come through for me this year.

  As always, I'd like to thank my agent Howard Morhaim; Justin Ackroyd, who has long been a vital supporter of my work; Jack Dann, anthology guru, pal and confidante; my Locus colleagues Nick Gevers and Rich Horton, who have always been there to discuss the best short fiction of the year when I needed it most; and Trevor Quachri and Brian Bieniowski at Dell Magazines and Gordon Van Gelder at Spilogale, Inc. who made sure I got my fix every month. Thanks also to the following good friends and colleagues without whom this book would have been much poorer, and much less fun to do: Lou Anders, Ellen Datlow, Gardner Dozois, Kelly Link, Gavin Grant, Sean Williams, and all of the book's contributors.

  And, last but not least, the big ones. Every year I pour countless hours into reading and editing, all accompanied by mumbling and exclamations. And each year Marianne, Jessica and Sophie let it happen. Without them this book, and all of the others, wouldn't exist.

  Other books edited by Jonathan Strahan:

  The New Space Opera (with Gardner Dozois)

  Best Short Novels: 2007

  Eidolon (with Jeremy G Byrne)

  Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005

  Science Fiction: The Very Best of 2005

  Best Short Novels: 2006

  Best Short Novels: 2005

  Fantasy: Best of 2004 (with Karen Haber)

  Science Fiction: Best of 2004 (with Karen Haber)

  Best Short Novels: 2004

  The Locus Awards: Thirty Years of the Best in Fantasy and Science Fiction( with Charles N. Brown)

  Science Fiction: Best of 2003 (with Karen Haber)

  The Year's Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Volume: 2 (with Jeremy G Byrne)

  The Year's Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Volume: 1 (with Jeremy G Byrne)

  INTRODUCTION

  Jonathan Strahan

  Welcome to The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. It's difficult to believe, but it's been almost sixty years since the first clearly genre year's best annual hit the bookstores. B
ack in 1949, the first issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction had just hit the newsstands and both Weird Tales and Amazing Stories had either completed or were about to complete their first quarter-centuries of publication. The short fiction field, for science fiction and fantasy, was booming, was a vital part of the explosion of pulp fiction magazines. It must have seemed impossible that it would ever end. And yet, it did.

  By the early 1950s, genre science fiction and fantasy began to make the move from magazine to book publication, mostly in the hands of small presses, often by collecting together stories from the pulps of the 1930s and 1940s into fix-ups or collections. An important step in that process happened when Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas edited Adventures in Time and Space, an anthology that collected a number of the classic stories of that first Golden Age of Science Fiction. It was important because gathering those stories together into one of the first ever science fiction anthologies helped to confirm those stories as part of science fiction's essential canon of great works.

  That role, of identifying science fiction and fantasy's canon of great works, was picked up by a number of reprint anthologies and anthology series over the years, but it's a role that, it seems to me, has most clearly fallen to the year's best anthology. And it's something you can see happening, even in that first year's best annual. When Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty edited The Best Science-Fiction Stories 1949 they featured stories by Ray Bradbury, Poul Anderson, and Isaac Asimov. Of those stories, at least one, Bradbury's "Mars Is Heaven!" became a permanent part of SF's canon, and even now we pick it up to see what stories were considered important back then. Bleiler and Dikty edited six more annuals, but arguably the most distinguished annual of the period was Judith Merril's classic SF: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy, which started in 1956 (with an introduction by Orson Welles!) and ran for twelve years. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes her anthologies as "always lively, with an emphasis on stories of wit and literacy". It also was the first year's best annual to clearly combine science fiction and fantasy in one volume, and is very much an inspiration for the book you now hold.

  By the time Merril edited her final year's best annual in 1968 the first Golden Age of Science Fiction was clearly over, most of the pulp magazines had seen their heyday and we had solidly begun to move into the age of the novel. And yet short fiction, which had always been the laboratory of the field, where new writers learned their craft and where the best writers in the field pushed its boundaries, didn't cease to exist or become any less important. Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions had appeared the year before in 1967, the New Wave was well and truly established, and great short fiction continued to appear everywhere. Editors like Lester Del Rey and Donald Wollheim continued to assemble year's best annuals and in 1972 Terry Carr went solo with The Best Science Fiction of the Year. His annuals, along with those of Gardner Dozois, who began editing year's best annuals solo in 1976, defined the next quarter-century of science fiction and fantasy, assembling the year's best stories in some of the most impressive annuals the field has yet seen. Their approaches, though, changed in the mid-1980s,when Dozois began to edit his mammoth The Year's Best Science Fiction series. Where Dozois favored an enormous volume that featured as broad a smorgasbord of fiction as the field could offer, Carr kept his volumes shorter, featuring fewer, arguably more essential selections.

  As a young reader, it was Carr's volumes that made the greatest impact on me, and who inspired this series of annuals. While I strongly responded to the catholic tastes of Merril's anthologies, and appreciated the broadness of Dozois', it was Carr's volumes that led me through the '70s and '80s, his books that I sought out to read and enjoy, and then to learn from when I began to edit year's best annuals myself. His The Best Science Fiction of the Year was the template for the Science Fiction: The Best of books I co-edited, his Year's Best Fantasy inspired the Fantasy: The Best of books, and his The Best Science Fiction Novellas of the Year was and is the inspiration behind my Best Short Novels anthologies.

  And then there is this series, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. I think that we're living through a new golden age of the science fiction and fantasy short story. Whether or not the business of publishing short fiction is thriving, the art of it has never been healthier. Each year an incredible array of publications—websites, ezines, chapbooks, small press 'zines, specialist anthologies, mass-market collections—are making new short fiction available to readers in staggering numbers. In 2005 alone, trade journal Locus estimated over 3,000 new genre short stories were published, and that number is likely far short of the true number. Those stories reflect a creative flowering the like of which the field hasn't seen since the Golden Age of Campbell and Astounding, with established and new writers pushing the boundaries in new and exciting ways, creating new movements and refining old ones. Whether or not any of these movements prove to have longevity or make a substantial impact on the field, they are symptomatic of a restlessness in readers and writers, who are looking for something fresh, something contemporary, something that stretches the boundaries of science fiction and fantasy, that is both respectful of the field's grand traditions and is looking eagerly for what comes next.

  It seems to me there is a place, then, for a book like this one. A book that brings together the best science fiction and the best fantasy stories of the year in one single volume. A book that is aware of, but not trapped, by the history of the genre; a book that has both eyes on the future, but hasn't forgotten the past. A book that hopefully combines the broad tastes of a Judith Merril with the editorial eye of a Terry Carr, while being its own beast too. I can only hope you'll agree.

  Before you move on to the heart of this book, the stories, I'd like to thank Charles N. Brown and the team at Locus Press, who generously threw this editor a lifeline in 2006 when a publisher abruptly disappeared, and Jason Williams and Jeremy Lassen at Night Shade, who have enthusiastically embraced the vision for this anthology series. Without them, the book you're now holding would not exist.

  And on to the stories. Here are some of the best and brightest science fiction and fantasy writers of our time doing what they do best, creating unforgettable stories. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did, and that you'll join me here again next year. I'm already reading for next year, and the stories I've seen!

  Jonathan Strahan

  Perth, Western Australia

  November 2006

  HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES

  Neil Gaiman

  Science fiction has had a love affair with the stars since its very earliest days. In the powerful story that follows, Neil Gaiman gives us a chilling look into what might happen if the stars loved us back.

  Gaiman is the award-winning author of the novels Coraline, American Gods, and Anansi Boys. His most recent book is collection Fragile Things. Upcoming is new collection M is for Magic.

  "Come on," said Vic. "It'll be great."

  "No, it won't," I said, although I'd lost this fight hours ago, and I knew it.

  "It'll be brilliant," said Vic, for the hundredth time. "Girls! Girls! Girls!" He grinned with white teeth.

  We both attended an all-boys' school in South London. While it would be a lie to say that we had no experience with girls—Vic seemed to have had many girlfriends, while I had kissed three of my sister's friends—it would, I think, be perfectly true to say that we both chiefly spoke to, interacted with, and only truly understood, other boys. Well, I did, anyway. It's hard to speak for someone else, and I've not seen Vic for thirty years. I'm not sure that I would know what to say to him now if I did.

  We were walking the back-streets that used to twine in a grimy maze behind East Croydon station—a friend had told Vic about a party, and Vic was determined to go whether I liked it or not, and I didn't. But my parents were away that week at a conference, and I was Vic's guest at his house, so I was trailing along beside him.

  "It'll be the same as it always is," I s
aid. "After an hour you'll be off somewhere snogging the prettiest girl at the party, and I'll be in the kitchen listening to somebody's mum going on about politics or poetry or something."

  "You just have to talk to them," he said. "I think it's probably that road at the end here." He gestured cheerfully, swinging the bag with the bottle in it.

  "Don't you know?"

  "Alison gave me directions and I wrote them on a bit of paper, but I left it on the hall table. S'okay. I can find it."

  "How?" Hope welled slowly up inside me.

  "We walk down the road," he said, as if speaking to an idiot child. "And we look for the party. Easy."

  I looked, but saw no party: just narrow houses with rusting cars or bikes in their concreted front gardens; and the dusty glass fronts of newsagents, which smelled of alien spices and sold everything from birthday cards and second-hand comics to the kind of magazines that were so pornographic that they were sold already sealed in plastic bags. I had been there when Vic had slipped one of those magazines beneath his sweater, but the owner caught him on the pavement outside and made him give it back.

  We reached the end of the road and turned into a narrow street of terraced houses. Everything looked very still and empty in the summer's evening. "It's all right for you," I said. "They fancy you. You don't actually have to talk to them." It was true: one urchin grin from Vic and he could have his pick of the room.

  "Nah. S'not like that. You've just got to talk."

  The times I had kissed my sister's friends I had not spoken to them. They had been around while my sister was off doing something elsewhere, and they had drifted into my orbit, and so I had kissed them. I do not remember any talking. I did not know what to say to girls, and I told him so.

  "They're just girls," said Vic. "They don't come from another planet."