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

  THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND

  FANTASY OF THE YEAR:

  VOLUME FOUR

  edited by Jonathan Strahan

  The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Four

  © 2010 by Jonathan Strahan

  This edition of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Four

  © 2010 by Night Shade Books

  Cover art © 2010 by John Berkey

  Cover design by Michael Ellis

  Interior layout and design by Ross E. Lockhart

  Introduction, story notes and arrangement © 2010 by Jonathan Strahan.

  First Edition

  ISBN: 978-1-59780-171-3

  Printed in Canada

  Night Shade Books

  Please visit us on the web at

  www.nightshadebooks.com

  Introduction, story notes and arrangement by Jonathan Strahan. © 2010 Jonathan Strahan.

  "Formidable Caress" by Stephen Baxter. © 2009 Stephen Baxter. Originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 2009.

  "By Moonlight" by Peter S. Beagle. © 2009 Avicenna Development Corporation. Originally published in We Never Talk About My Brother (Tachyon).

  "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown" by Holly Black. © 2009 Holly Black. Originally published in The Eternal Kiss, Trisha Telep ed. (Running Press)

  "This Wind Blowing, and This Tide" by Damien Broderick. © 2009 by Damien Broderick. Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, April/May 2009.

  "Truth and Bone" by Pat Cadigan. © 2009 Pat Cadigan. Originally published in Poe, Ellen Datlow ed. (Solaris Books).

  "The Night Cache" by Andy Duncan. © 2009 Andy Duncan. Originally published in The Night Cache (PS Publishing)

  "The Pelican Bar" by Karen Joy Fowler. © 2009 Karen Joy Fowler. Originally published in Eclipse Three, Jonathan Strahan ed. (Night Shade).

  "As Women Fight" by Sara Genge. © 2009 Sara Genge. Originally published Asimov's Science Fiction, December 2009.

  "It Takes Two" by Nicola Griffith. © 2009 Nicola Griffith. Originally published in Eclipse Three, Jonathan Strahan ed. (Night Shade).

  "Dragon's Teeth" by Alex Irvine. © 2009 Alex Irvine. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 2009.

  "Spar" by Kij Johnson. © 2009 Kij Johnson. Originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine, October 2009.

  "The Cat That Walked a Thousand Miles" by Kij Johnson. © 2009 Kij Johnson. Originally published in Tor.com

  "JoBoy" by Diana Wynne Jones. © 2009 Diana Wynne Jones. First printed in The

  Dragon Book, ed. Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann, published by the Penguin Group

  "Going Deep" by James Patrick Kelly. © 2009 Dell Magazines, Inc. Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2009.

  "The Motorman's Coat" by John Kessel. © 2009 Spilogale, Inc. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June/July 2009.

  "Echoes of Aurora" by Ellen Klages. © 2009 Ellen Klages. Originally published in What Remains (Aqueduct Press).

  "A Wild and a Wicked Youth" by Ellen Kushner. © 2009 Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April/May.

  "Ferryman" by Margo Lanagan. © 2009 Margo Lanagan. Originally published in Firebirds Soaring, Sharyn November ed. (Viking).

  "The Cinderella Game" by Kelly Link. © 2009 Kelly Link. Originally published in Trolls Eye View, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling eds. (Viking).

  "Mongoose" by Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear. © 2009 Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear. Originally published in Lovecraft Unbound, Ellen Datlow ed. (Dark Horse).

  "Before My Last Breath" by Robert Reed. © 2009 Robert Reed. Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, October/November 2009.

  "Blocked" by Geoff Ryman. © 2009 Geoff Ryman. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 2009.

  "Black Swan" by Bruce Sterling. © 2009 Bruce Sterling. Originally published in Interzone 221.

  "Zeppelin City" by Michael Swanwick & Eileen Gunn. © 2009 Michael Swanwick & Eileen Gunn. Originally published in Tor.com.

  "Eros, Philia, Agape" by Rachel Swirsky. © 2009 Rachel Swirsky. Originally published in Tor.com.

  "Three Twilight Tales" by Jo Walton. © 2009 Jo Walton. Originally published in Firebirds Soaring, Sharyn November ed. (Viking).

  "The Island" by Peter Watts. © 2009 Peter Watts. Originally published in The New Space Opera 2, Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan eds. (HarperCollins).

  "Utriusque Cosmi" by Robert Charles Wilson. © 2009 Robert Charles Wilson. Originally published in The New Space Opera 2, Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan eds. (HarperCollins).

  "A Delicate Architecture" by Catherynne M. Valente. © 2009 Catherynne M. Valente. Originally published in Troll's Eye View, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling eds. (Viking).

  For Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber, dear friends both,

  who were kind and generous when they did not have to be,

  with my thanks.

  Also edited by Jonathan Strahan

  Best Short Novels (2004 through 2007)

  Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005

  Science Fiction: The Very Best of 2005

  The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volumes 1 - 4

  Eclipse One; Eclipse Two; Eclipse Three

  The Starry Rift: Tales of New Tomorrows

  Godlike Machines (forthcoming)

  Engineering Infinity (forthcoming)

  Wings of Fire (forthcoming)

  With Lou Anders

  Swords and Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery (forthcoming)

  With Charles N. Brown

  The Locus Awards: Thirty Years of the Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy

  Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories

  With Jeremy G. Byrne

  The Year's Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume 1

  The Year's Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume 2

  Eidolon 1

  With Terry Dowling

  The Jack Vance Treasury

  The Jack Vance Reader

  Wild Thyme, Green Magic

  Hard Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance

  With Gardner Dozois

  The New Space Opera

  The New Space Opera 2

  With Karen Haber

  Science Fiction: Best of 2003

  Science Fiction: Best of 2004

  Fantasy: Best of 2004

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  By my count this is either the thirty-third or thirty-fourth book that I have worked on since the chance presented itself for me to edit my first anthology back in the heady Australian summer of 1996. Astoundingly, to me at least, thirty-one (or thirty-two) of those books were edited between mid-2004 and the end of 2009. Five years, give or take. Not one of those books, not a single one, would have been possible without the support, guidance and friendship of the late Charles N. Brown who died this past July. He was a dear friend and his advice was instrumental in guiding this book to publication.

  This year has been a challenging one and getting this book done has been demanding. I'd especially like to thank Gary K. Wolfe, whose advice has been invaluable; Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Ben Payne, Alex Pierce, Tehani Wessely, Jason Fischer and Sarah Parker from Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth who were my companions on the journey through the year and provided an invaluable sounding board. I'd also like to thank Howard Morhaim, Katie Menick, Justin Ackroyd, Jack Dann, and Gordon Van Gelder. Thanks also to the following good friends and colleagues wi
thout whom this book would have been much poorer, and much less fun to do: Lou Anders, Deborah Biancotti, Ellen Datlow, Gardner Dozois, Sean Williams, and all of the book's contributors.

  As always, my greatest thanks go to Marianne, Jessica and Sophie. Every moment spent working on this book was a moment stolen from them. I only hope I can repay them.

  INTRODUCTION

  Jonathan Strahan

  This last year was a good but not exceptional year for short speculative fiction. As was the case in 2008, and for most of this decade really, there were literally millions of words of short science fiction and fantasy published in magazines, anthologies, collections, 'zines, and pamphlets. And, while markets opened and markets closed, there was still enough top notch science fiction and fantasy published to keep any one reader busy, and easily enough to fill several volumes like the one you are now holding.

  As is always the case, there were trends that could be readily discerned by any attentive reader. Our fascination with the undead continued through 2009 and looks set to go on for at least another year or two. John Joseph Adams' remarkably successful 2008 anthology The Living Dead was followed by several less-interesting books by other hands. Literary mash-ups, of all things (!), gave us the runaway bestseller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and way too many similar books seem set to follow. The other major trend was a passion for the retro-futurism of steampunk. While Nick Gevers' Extraordinary Engines investigated some of the possibilities of the subgenre last year, and Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer's fine Steampunk laid out its past, 2009 saw major novels like Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan and Cherie Priest's Boneshaker published which, along with a passel of short stories, made it clear steampunk is here to stay. It's not brave or particularly prescient to suggest we'll be dealing with both of these trends for several years yet. A perhaps longer-lasting trend, though, is our growing interest in the technology of reading. While the enormous, and frankly ominous, Google Book Settlement case continued, it seemed we became more and more interested in electronic book readers. What once was either clunky or dull had, by year's end, become sexy and cool, and was increasingly tipped to become the new iPod. Certainly the 2009 revamp of the Kindle was well received, as was Barnes & Noble's nook, which debuted late in the year. It remains to be seen, though, whether either of these devices, or some as-yet-unreleased competitor, will finally make eBooks a widespread and popular reality.

  No single publishing news event dominated the year; instead, people interested in the industry focused on cutbacks and losses, and pondered the future. At various times things began to look grim indeed. Asimov's Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact changed their physical format with their December 2008 issues, which suggested that they would publish less fiction and might even be in some kind of financial difficulty. Then in January Sovereign Media announced that it was ceasing publication of Realms of Fantasy, a stalwart of the field since 1994. All of the doomsayers probably felt that the science fiction magazine apocalypse was truly upon us when in April publisher Gordon Van Gelder announced that he was moving the venerable Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction to a bi-monthly schedule, producing double issues that would be slightly shorter than two of their monthly predecessors.

  And yet, as the year moved on it became clear that while every magazine was facing challenges (mostly arising from changes to postal charges), things were not as bad as we feared. Throughout the year, at various times, publishers made spirited attempts to make it clear that, while things were tough, they were still doing okay, assertions that were borne out by the fact that at year's end Asimov's and F&SF had published pretty much exactly the same amount of fiction they had in 2008 (though F&SF's decision to publish a series of classic reprints did mean they published fewer new stories in 2009), with only Analog publishing a significantly smaller volume of fiction than in previous years. Then Realms of Fantasy was suddenly and unexpectedly resurrected by the enterprising Warren Lapine, with Shawna McCarthy remaining at the editorial helm, and ended up missing just a single issue.

  But while things weren't as bad as we feared there still were some genuine losses. In August the publishers of Jim Baen's Universe, one of the highest paying short fiction markets in the field, announced that they would discontinue the magazine because of problems finding sufficient subscribers, then Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show also announced cutbacks, which was followed by the news that venerable SF media magazine Starlog and newcomer Death Ray would both be ceasing publication. Even the buoyant anthology market saw cutbacks, with editors Lou Anders and George Mann walking away from their "Fast Forward" and "Solaris Book of New Science Fiction" series to focus respectively on their publishing and writing commitments.

  And what of the fiction? Well, as has been the case for the last decade, a lot of excellent fiction was published, and in ever more diverse locations. The seemingly beleaguered major print magazines all had solid if unspectacular years, with The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction continuing to set the standard amongst the digests with fine stories from Geoff Ryman, John Kessel, Ellen Kushner, Alex Irvine, Robert Silverberg, Elizabeth Hand, and others. Almost as good was Sheila Williams's Asimov's, which published strong work by James Patrick Kelly, Robert Reed, Nancy Kress, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Damien Broderick (making a welcome splash with some fine new stories), Holly Phillips, and Rudy Rucker & Bruce Sterling. Williams deserves special note for publishing some challenging newer writers like Sara Genge who had two strong stories in the magazine this year. Analog continued very much as it has in recent times, very much being seen as representing an old core kind of science fiction regardless of what it actually published, and featuring excellent stories by Stephen Baxter and Steven Gould. Rounding out the "Big Four" print magazines, if there really is such a thing anymore, was the resurrected Realms of Fantasy, which published some solid work by Adam Corbin-Fusco, Cat Rambo and Richard Parks. I remain a little disappointed with it, though, and continue to hope it might be more adventurous. Interzone has sat just below the "Big Four" for the last several years, steadily publishing beautifully designed issues (it's easily the best looking fiction magazine in the field), and is a reliable source for good fiction. This year it was a little less impressive than it was last year, but they did publish an excellent story from Bruce Sterling amongst some other good work. There were many, many other print magazines published during the year—far too many to mention here—but I would single out Ann VanderMeer's Weird Tales as being especially worthy of your attention. If the magazine can re-establish a regular publication schedule and maintain its high editorial standards it will stand with the "Big Four" within the next few years.

  We probably make too much of the difference between print and online magazines: print and online are after all only mediums of distribution and a magazine is a magazine. Under the capable editorship of Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Tor.com has very quickly established itself as the best and most reliable source of excellent short fiction on the web, publishing terrific stories by Michael Swanwick and Eileen Gunn, Rachel Swirsky, Kij Johnson, Charles Stross, and others. The only criticism I have of Tor.com is that I wish they'd publish more stories. Sitting only slightly behind it is Neil Clarke's Clarkesworld Magazine, which I think along with Weird Tales is one of the most improved magazines in the field. Although it mostly publishes quite short stories, what it does publish is of a very high standard with especially good work this year from Catherynne M. Valente, Kij Johnson, and Gord Sellar. And then there's Shadow Unit, an intriguing reader contribution-funded website where writers like Elizabeth Bear, Emma Bull, Sarah Monette, Holly Black and others regularly publish episodes for an unproduced television show, the eponymous "Shadow Unit". The writing is uniformly excellent, the stories intriguing and several of them would definitely be in this volume were they only shorter (almost all of the stories are quite long novellas).

  As has been the case for the past four or five years, anthologies continue to be an excellent source of great short
fiction. It doesn't seem appropriate for me to say too much about the anthologies I edit myself, so I'll simply note that The New Space Opera 2 (co-edited with Gardner Dozois) had strong stories by Robert Charles Wilson, Peter Watts, John C. Wright, Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling and others, while Eclipse Three had good work from Karen Joy Fowler, Nicola Griffith, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Ellen Klages, and Ellen Kushner, amongst others. The two best science fiction anthologies of the year were Nick Gevers and Jay Lake's Other Earths, which featured outstanding stories by Robert Charles Wilson, Gene Wolfe and others, and George Mann's The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume 3, which had good work by Daniel Abraham and Alastair Reynolds. The best fantasy anthology of the year was Sharyn November's Firebirds Soaring, which included outstanding work by Jo Walton, Margo Lanagan, Ellen Klages, and Marly Youmans. It was very closely followed by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois's excellent The Dragon Book. Any theme anthology is best dipped into, but this strong outing contained a real diversity of high quality work by Diana Wynne Jones, Cecelia Holland, Andy Duncan, and others. I also admired Dozois and George R.R. Martin's Songs of the Dying Earth, which also was a book that you had to dip into rather than read straight through. The stories by Dan Simmons, Neil Gaiman, and Lucius Shepard were particularly good. Ellen Datlow continued to show why she is one of our best editors in 2009, publishing no fewer than three fine anthologies. Her Poe, Lovecraft Unbound, and Troll's Eye View (with Terri Windling) were all outstanding and stories from each of them are reprinted here. Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers' Postscripts magazine morphed into a quarterly anthology series in 2009. The best volume was Postscripts 20/21 which had several excellent stories, but the standout Postscripts story of the year was Daniel Abraham's "Balfour and Meriwether in 'The Adventure of the Emperor's Vengeance'" from Postscripts 19. And finally one or two really interesting books were published back home in Australia this year. Twelfth Planet Press published Peter M. Ball's strong novelette Horn, and Tansy Rayner Roberts' highly enjoyable "Siren Beat", which appeared as a double book with World Fantasy Award winner Robert Shearman's "Roadkill" , and Deborah Biancotti's excellent debut collection, The Book of Endings. All are recommended. Particularly noteworthy, though, was Keith Stevenson's X6, an anthology of novellas that is genuinely one of the year's most interesting books. It features an excoriating piece of work from Paul Haines, "Wives", and a terrific fantasy by Margo Lanagan, that make the book well worth seeking out.