An unabridged audio collection of the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “Marielena,” by Nina Allan, an immigrant is haunted by his past, as well as his present and future, in a disturbingly mean-spirited near-future England. A convicted serial killer is sentenced to “rightminding” to cure his neurological disorder that resulted in the sociopathic murdering of thirteen women in “Covenant,” by Elizabeth Bear. “The Magician and LaPlace’s Demon” by Tom Crosshill, follows a powerful AI that discovers the existence of magic and then prosecutes a vendetta against the magicians who grow more powerful as their numbers dwindle. In “Sadness,” by Timons Esaias, a man strikes back, as best he can, against the powerful aliens who conquered Earth long ago. In “Amicae Aeternum,” by Ellen Klages, a young girl shares her last morning on Earth with her girlfriend before boarding a generation starship. “Red Lights, and Rain,” by Gareth L. Powell, is a blend of sci-fi and vampire-hunting lore in which the vampires are made, not born. In “The Sarcophagus,” by Robert Reed, the maintenance cyborgs of the Great Ship encounter a stranded spacer in a derelict lifesuit from a long ago ship. “In Babelsberg,” by Alastair Reynolds, showcases a robot whose account of the dead colonists recently found on Titan are challenged by another AI. In “Passage of Earth,” by Michael Swanwick, a coroner gets a taste of the Earth invaders’ superior intelligence while dissecting a giant worm-like alien. Finally, in “The Colonel,” by Peter Watts, Colonel Moore tries to assess the capabilities of the hived human intelligences that have attacked a compound under his command.

An unabridged collection spotlighting the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2017 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “My English Name,” by R. S. Benedict, an intelligent alien, who parasitizes an English teacher in China, falls in love. After a victorious space battle, an indentured robot finds a refugee who makes an offer it can’t refuse in “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance” by Tobias S. Buckell. In “The Moon is Not a Battlefield,” by Indrapramit Das, an Indian soldier retires on Earth after spending most of her life on the Moon. A young woman joins the U.S. Army to fight terrorists after aliens arrive on Earth bearing tech gifts unevenly dispersed to humans in “Dear Sarah” by Nancy Kress. In “An Evening with Severyn Grimes,” by Rich Larson, a gifted hacker uses cyberspace to extract pay back on the rich businessman who put her in prison. Set in the author’s hexarchate universe, an ex-Kel super soldier is enlisted to retrieve a weapon of mass destruction stolen by a rogue general in “The Chameleon’s Gloves” by Yoon Ha Lee. In “The Martian Obelisk,” by Linda Nagata, on a dying Earth, an architect remotely building a monument to mankind on Mars receives a message from an abandoned Mars colony. A petty meat counterfeiter is blackmailed into forging T-bone steaks for an anonymous thug in “A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad. In “The Residue of Fire,” by Robert Reed, a torturer tries to cope with one of his alien victims who witnessed a pivotal moment in the lives of two immortals, in this Great Ship tale. And finally, in this Revelation Space tale, a starship captain wakes from hibernation with her ship stalled next to an alien artifact and a mutiny in progress in “Night Passage” by Alastair Reynolds.

An unabridged collection spotlighting the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2016 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “The Art of Space Travel,” by Nina Allan, the staff of a hotel prepares for the crew of a one-way mission to Mars on the heels of earlier disasters. An artist and his wife search for fulfillment in a utopian world created by AIs in “They Have all One Breath” by Karl Bunker. In “Patience Lake,” by Matthew Claxton, an injured military cyborg helps defend a farm family that has helped him. In a top secret job, an all too conscious bus driver takes a non-cognizant alien and his human translator on a tour of the United States, in “Touring with the Alien” by Carolyn Ives Gilman. In “My Generations Shall Praise,” by Samantha Henderson, a woman on death row is persuaded to have her mind overwritten so that a wealthy relative can use her as a host body. People adapting to a melted Antarctica evolve new folklore, superstitions, and myths in “Elves of Antarctica” by Paul McAuley. In “Red in Tooth and Cog,” by Cat Rambo, a woman acquires a keen interest in the small domestic appliance AI ecosystem that evolves in a park after her phone is stolen. An ancient robot tells a human how it helped build the Great Ship, a planet-sized starship, from hyperfiber in “Parables of Infinity” by Robert Reed. In “Prodigal,” by Gord Sellar, an uplifted family dog questions the relationship between dogs and humans and then takes action. And finally, in a Bradburyesque tale, people go to Mars via cheap, one-person, one-way spacecrafts called jalopies in “Terminal” by Lavie Tidhar.

An unabridged collection spotlighting the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2015 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “My Last Bringback,” by John Barnes, an expert on restoring the memories of Alzheimer's patients becomes her own patient.A young man living in a bubble habitat on the ocean floor of Venus must deal with terraforming gone awryin “The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss,” by David Brin. In“Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight,” winner of the British Science Fiction Association Award, byAliette de Bodard,the death of a scientist in the Dai Viet interstellar empire is mourned. The shipmind of a cobbled together fighter spacecraft and its pilot press on under dire circumstances in “Damage” by David Levine. An aristocrat’s trip to Venus, in search of her disgraced brother, is memorialized by papercuts of flora native to this planet in “Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan,” by Ian McDonald. In “The Audience,” by Sean McMullen, a spacecraft’s trek to another planet discovers a malevolent species interested in Earth. An AI is on a mission to the outer reaches of the solar system to found a sanctuary in a posthuman universe in “Empty,” by Robert Reed. In “A Murmuration,” by Alastair Reynolds, a scientist struggles to publish a paper on her exhilarating findings on the flocking behavior of birds. In the dystopian future of “Two-Year Man,” by Kelly Robson, a janitor brings a mutant baby home to his wife hoping to fill their lives with love. And finally, an android medical attendant, capable of mimicking family members, cares for an Alzheimer’s patient in “Today I Am Paul,” by Martin L. Shoemaker.

Short novels are movie length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This unabridged collection presents the best-of-the-best science fiction novellas published in 2016 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form of story-telling. In “Wyatt Earp 2.0,” by Wil McCarthy, a rough and tumble Martian mining town reconstructs Wyatt Earp to restore order. In “The Charge and the Storm,” by An Owomoyela, an uneasy co-existence between human refugees from a crashed spaceship and the aliens who saved them is threatened by human dissidents.In “Lazy Dog Out,” by Suzanne Palmer, a spaceship pilot becomes embroiled in a sinister conspiracy that threatens a space station’s way of life and everything she holds dear.In “The Iron Tactician,” by Alastair Reynolds, Merlin hunts the galaxy for a superweapon powerful enough to destroy the berserker-like robots called Huskers. “Einstein’s Shadow,” by Allen M. Steele, is an alternate history in which an American detective becomes Albert Einstein’s bodyguard as the physicist flees the Nazis onboard an airplane the size of an ocean liner. In “The Vanishing Kind,” by Lavie Tidhar, set in post-World War II London where Nazi Germany won the war, a lovesick, former German soldier searches for an old flame hoping to rekindle a romance in this cold, stark world. Finally, in “The Metal Demimonde,” by Nick Wolven, amidst a world dominated by automation, a carney passionate about her carnival ride has a fling with a jobless boy who rages against those machines.

A collection of science fiction tales features the writing of Jules Verne, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, Theodore Sturgeon, Ursula K. LeGuin, Julian Huxley, Rudyard Kipling, Fritz Leiber, Murray Leinster, and others.

Short novels are movie length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This unabridged collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form of story-telling. In “The Man Who Sold the Moon,” by Cory Doctorow, hardware geeks and Burning Man fanatics band together to overcome challenges such as crowdfunding a space mission, falling in love, battling cancer and perfecting an open source engineering marvel in order to put a 3D printing robot, that creates ceramic building panels from sand, on the moon. “The Man Who Sold the Moon” won the 2015 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short science fiction. In “The Regular,” by Ken Liu, a cybernetically enhanced private investigator keeps her emotions in check with a piece of hardware called The Regulator while she searches for the murderer of a prostitute whom she suspects is a serial killer. “Claudius Rex,” by John P. Murphy, is a sci-fi whodunit comedy that pays tongue-in-cheek homage to Rex Stout and Isaac Asimov. A humble PI partners with an arrogant AI to solve the murder of the AI’s creator. Ai! In “Of All Possible Worlds,” by Jay O’Connell, an old timeline wizard coaxes a younger man to become his apprentice in an attempt to edit Earth’s history so that the planet will escape the ravages of the Long Night and ensure that our timeline is the best of all possible worlds. In “Each in His Prison, Thinking of the Key,” by William Preston, the U.S. government brings a telepathic interrogator, who is a veteran of the American war in Iraq, to a secret complex in Texas to get a handle on an enigmatic prisoner known as “The Old Man.” A test of wills ensues between the two in this homage to Doc Savage. Finally, in “The Last Log of the Lachrimosa,” by Alastair Reynolds, set in the Revelation Space universe, a crew investigates a cave on a volcanic planet in the hopes of salvaging valuable abandoned tech only to discover that the cave is defended by a horrific psychological weapon.