The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 4
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About this listen
From Hugo Award-winning editor Neil Clarke, the best science fiction stories of the year are collected in a single volume.
Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more - a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, a yearly anthology compiled by Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning editor Neil Clarke, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.
The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Clarke, publisher and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed and award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year's writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome "sensawunda" that the genre has to offer.
Table of Contents
Introduction: A State of the Short SF Field in 2018
When We Were Starless - Simone Heller
Intervention - Kelly Robson
All the Time We've Left to Spend - Alyssa Wong
Domestic Violence - Madeline Ashby
Ten Landscapes of Nili Fossae - Ian McDonald
Prophet of the Roads - Naomi Kritzer
Traces of Us - Vanessa Fogg
Theories of Flight - Linda Nagata
Lab B-15 - Nick Wolven
Requiem - Vandana Singh
Sour Milk Girls - Erin Roberts
Mother Tongues - S. Qiouyi Lu
Singles' Day - Samantha Murray
Nine Last Days on Planet Earth - Daryl Gregory
The Buried Giant - Lavie Tidhar
The Anchorite Wakes - R.S.A. Garcia
Entropy War - Yoon Ha Lee
An Equation of State - Robert Reed
Quantifying Trust - John Chu
Hard Mary - Sofia Samatar
Freezing Rain, a Chance of Falling - L.X. Beckett
Okay, Glory - Elizabeth Bear
Heavy Lifting - A.T. Greenblatt
Lions and Gazelles - Hannu Rajaniemi
Different Seas - Alastair Reynolds
Among the Water Buffaloes, a Tiger's Steps - Aliette de Bodard
Byzantine Empathy - Ken Liu
Meat and Salt and Sparks - Rich Larson
Umbernight - Carolyn Ives Gilman
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Evoking Beyoncé’s Lemonade for a teen audience, these authors who are truly Octavia Butler’s heirs have woven worlds to create a stunning narrative that puts Black women and gender-nonconforming individuals at its center. A Phoenix First Must Burn will take you on a journey from folktales retold to futuristic societies and everything in between. Filled with stories of love and betrayal, strength and resistance, this collection contains an array of complex and true-to-life characters through which you cannot help but see yourself reflected.
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Absolutely brilliant
- By Ruthi on 03-11-20
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Light from Other Stars
- A Novel
- By: Erika Swyler
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Eleven-year-old Nedda Papas is obsessed with becoming an astronaut. In 1986 in Easter, a small Florida Space Coast town, her dreams seem almost within reach - if she can just grow up fast enough. Theo, the scientist father she idolizes, is consumed by his own obsessions. Laid off from his job at NASA and still reeling from the loss of Nedda's newborn brother several years before, Theo turns to the dangerous dream of extending his living daughter's childhood just a little longer. The result is an invention that alters the fabric of time.
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How does she do it?
- By BLF on 07-30-19
By: Erika Swyler
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Double Threat
- By: F. Paul Wilson
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Stephanie Willing, Rupert Degas
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In the southwestern desert, a mysterious cult prays for the return of the Visitors. Only one creature can derail that grand and glorious event: An evil entity, known as the Duad, can keep the Visitors from arriving and prevent the transfiguration to come. Daley, who lives nearby, has a far more serious problem: an alien consciousness that has taken up residence in her head.
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So ready to see what's ahead next!
- By Stacy on 10-09-21
By: F. Paul Wilson
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Blind Lake
- By: Robert Charles Wilson
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert Charles Wilson, says The New York Times, "writes superior science fiction thrillers." His Darwinia won Canada's Aurora Award; his most recent novel, The Chronoliths, won the prestigious John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Now he tells a gripping tale of alien contact and human love in a mysterious but hopeful universe.
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DIMINISHED EXPECTATIONS
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 06-22-15
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The Event
- By: Nathan Hystad
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Cities all around the world reported strange alien vessels descending. Some saw them as the heralds of a new age; others fired everything they had at them. All were taken as the beams lashed down and drew them into the sky. Dean was left behind, seemingly the last man on Earth. A trail of clues left by his dead wife guides Dean on a perilous journey across America and beyond to learn the truth behind the mysterious ships and save humanity from its doom.
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Did not inspire me to get the next book.
- By MD on 12-13-18
By: Nathan Hystad
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Hellboy: An Assortment of Horrors
- By: Various
- Narrated by: Seth Podowitz
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifteen of the biggest names in weird literature come together to pay tribute to Hellboy and the characters of Mike Mignola’s award-winning line of books! Assembled by Joe Golem and Baltimore co-writer Christopher Golden, this anthology boasts 15 original stories by the best in horror, fantasy, and science fiction, including Seanan McGuire (October Daye series), Chelsea Cain (Heartsick), Jonathan Maberry (Joe Ledger series), and more! The new writer of Hellboy and the BPRD, iZombie co-creator Chris Roberson, pitches in as well!
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An assortment of good times.
- By Chris E. on 02-28-20
By: Various
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Starfish
- Rifters Trilogy Series, Book 1
- By: Peter Watts
- Narrated by: Gabriel Vaughan
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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A huge international corporation has developed a facility along the Juan de Fuca Ridge at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to exploit geothermal power. They send a bio-engineered crew - people who have been altered to withstand the pressure and breathe the seawater - down to live and work in this weird, fertile undersea darkness.
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An excellent story, but only half of it
- By Casey on 02-12-20
By: Peter Watts
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To Be Taught, If Fortunate
- By: Becky Chambers
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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At the turn of the 22nd century, scientists make a breakthrough in human spaceflight. Through a revolutionary method known as somaforming, astronauts can survive in hostile environments off Earth using synthetic biological supplementations. With the fragility of the body no longer a limiting factor, human beings are at last able to journey to neighboring exoplanets long known to harbor life. A team of these explorers, Ariadne O’Neill and her three crewmates, are hard at work in a planetary system 15 light-years from Sol, on a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds.
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"Gay & Lesbian"?!? This is solid Sci-Fi
- By Jennifer on 09-16-19
By: Becky Chambers
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The End and Other Beginnings
- Stories from the Future
- By: Veronica Roth
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin, MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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No world is like the other. Within this masterful collection, each setting is more strange and wonderful than the last, brimming with new technologies and beings. And yet, for all the advances in these futuristic lands, the people still must confront deeply human problems. In these six stories, Veronica Roth reaches into the unknown and draws forth something startlingly familiar and profoundly beautiful.
By: Veronica Roth
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Chosen Ones
- By: Veronica Roth
- Narrated by: Dakota Fanning
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifteen years ago, five ordinary teenagers were singled out by a prophecy to take down an impossibly powerful entity wreaking havoc across North America. He was known as the Dark One, and his weapon of choice - catastrophic events known as Drains - leveled cities and claimed thousands of lives. Chosen Ones, as the teens were known, gave everything they had to defeat him. After the Dark One fell, the world went back to normal...for everyone but them. Of the five, Sloane has had the hardest time adjusting.
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Same dull and depressed tone throughout
- By Thien-Nga Vo on 04-09-20
By: Veronica Roth
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Hellboy: Oddest Jobs
- By: Author Various
- Narrated by: Seth Podowitz
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Longtime contributor to the Hellboy mythos Christopher Golden brings together a crew of luminaries including Joe R. Lansdale and China Miéville, cross-genre sensation Barbara Hambly, celebrated mystery writer Ken Bruen, best-selling science-fiction and fantasy novelist Tad Williams, and a bevy of other skilled storytellers eager to spin a tale or two about the world's greatest paranormal detective. Some of the biggest names in horror, mystery, and fantasy come together to pay homage to Mike Mignola's Hellboy!
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could go with more authors that know Source materi
- By bEnemy on 07-25-23
By: Author Various
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The Silent History
- By: Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby, Kevin Moffett
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, LJ Ganser
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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It begins as a statistical oddity: a spike in children born with acute speech delays. Physically normal in every way, these children never speak and do not respond to speech; they don't learn to read, don't learn to write. As the number of cases grows to an epidemic level, theories spread. Maybe it's related to a popular antidepressant; maybe it's environmental. Or maybe these children have special skills all their own.
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A Thought-Provoking Premise
- By Doug - Audible on 03-31-15
By: Eli Horowitz, and others
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The Creepypasta Collection
- Modern Urban Legends You Can’t Unread
- By: MrCreepyPasta - editor
- Narrated by: Heather Costa, Jeffrey Kafer
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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A terrifying, thrilling collection of must-listen horror stories chock-full of nightmarish supernatural beings and the murderously disturbed that are sure to keep you up all night long.
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creepy definitely
- By Danh on 01-16-22
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What listeners say about The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 4
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kirby
- 09-17-22
Enjoy the SF Short Stories
Some of the stories did not captivate my attention and it was hard to follow plot especially while driving. But for the most part I enjoyed most of them
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- Ricard Raventos
- 08-21-24
Dissapointing selection of stories
'Mother Tongue' by S. Qiouyi Lu is a good story. 'The Anchorite Waves' by R. S. A. Garcia, 'Domestic Violence' by Madeline Ashby, 'When We Where Starless' by Simone Heller and 'Umberlight' by Carolyn Ives Gilman are ahead of the rest of stories in the volume.
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- William G Carrig
- 05-14-21
Pretty bad
I honestly could not finish this book. Most publishers can not tell the difference between fantasy and science fiction. This is true in this case. Most of the stories are fantasy that takes place in the future, or in space, or in a research facility and that gets them tagged as sci fi.
Listening to the 5-10 stories I did listen to was a chore. It became more daunting of a task as I moved on.
The one story I listened to that had some science in it had very bad science in it. You would not need to know much science to know that what they are saying is not true, not possible. Most scientists would say something like "There is a non zero probability of that occurring" when what they really mean is that something is not possible.
A lot of times an audio book like this might start out weak but it gets better. This one did not.
If this really is the "best" science fiction of some year, I weep for that year.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Brad Beatty
- 11-15-19
Not science fiction - it is young adult romance
I tried listening to the first three stories. Every one was a nice, fluffy, beautifully written expression of a young woman's feelings. Lost loves, regrets, blah blah. Not compelling, nor interesting. I returned this book.
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5 people found this helpful