Space Fantasy Adult

First contact with a mysterious race of aliens reveals an unusual request; a family's pet dog comes to grips with the newly bestowed gift of human-like intelligence; a poet, in danger and alone on a distant world, makes unlikely allies; hundreds of years in the future, a famous hermit lives in the sea above the now-underwater Harvard University; former friends navigate unsteady peace between human refugees and the technologically superior race that saved them; in a future where human life can be infinitely extended through cybertronic rebirth, one woman declines immortality.

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. Neil Clarke 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.

The Galactic Republic is in chaos following the Nihil’s shocking destruction of the gleaming space station Starlight Beacon. Capitalizing on their victory, the Nihil have erected a barrier called the Stormwall around a section of Republic space and claimed it for themselves. Within this Occlusion Zone, people live at the mercy of the Nihil—and the Nihil are not known for mercy.

Sixteen-year-old Princess Leia Organa faces the most challenging task of her life so far: proving herself in the areas of body, mind, and heart to be formally named heir to the throne of Alderaan. She's taking rigorous survival courses, practicing politics, and spearheading relief missions to worlds under Imperial control. But Leia has worries beyond her claim to the crown.

Sylvestri Yarrow is on a streak of bad luck with no end of sight. She's been doing her best to keep the family cargo business going after her mom's death, but between mounting debt and increasing attacks by the Nihil on unsuspecting ships, Syl is in danger of losing all she has left of her mother. She heads to the galactic capital of Coruscant for help, but gets sidetracked when she's drawn into a squabble between two of the Republic's most powerful families over a patch of space on the frontier.

There’s the new treecat adoptee who needs to be kept from becoming a risk to the carefully guarded secret of just how smart the arboreal inhabitants of Sphinx really are. There’s the overeager journalist whose campaign to protect the treecats from exploitation as the newest, coolest pet on any planet could threaten the very creatures he seeks to defend. And there’s the mysterious rash of weird accidents that are plaguing Sphinx’s younger inhabitants—including some of those nearest and dearest to Stephanie.

Karr is a teenage boy like many others in the galaxy. He goes to school, helps his parents with the family business, likes speeders and droids. But Karr also has a secret: When he touches certain objects, he gets searing headaches and blacks out. And along with the pain sometimes come visions of people he doesn't know and places he's never been. Karr's parents worry that he's sick; his grandmother is convinced the visions come from the Force. But it's been years since anyone has heard from the last of the Jedi - Luke Skywalker. Are there any Jedi left to guide Karr?

Seventeen-year-old Aimee Roh has Sensory Time Warp Syndrome, a rare condition that causes her to time travel to a moment in her life when she smells something linked to that memory. Her dad is convinced she’ll simply grow out of it if she tries hard enough, but Aimee’s fear of vanishing at random has kept her from living a normal life. When Aimee disappears for nine hours into a memory of her estranged mom—a moment Aimee has never remembered before—she becomes distraught.

“These are dangerous stories. The kind that warp reality and threaten to change the world” warns guest editor Hugh Howey in his introduction. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 promises a treasure trove of audacious characters, daring worldbuilding, and twisted realties. A sibling duo of supernatural hitmen. A traveling spellbreaker and his trusty alligator mount. Superheroes registering for work. Sentient spaceships with an AI-human interface grow up together with their human pilots.

With the help of a command AI, the hole in the Daedalus has been fixed by Hazel and her friends. But in the process, they have antagonized the Yi, the aliens who are actually controlling the Daedalus. After a daring escape from the Yi, Hazel and her friends now must convince the people of the Daedalus villages and the village leaders that the Yi exist - and that they must fight back in order to survive. This proves tricky, as those in power don't want their authority challenged.

When 14-year-old Padmé Naberrie wins the election for queen of Naboo, she adopts the name Amidala and leaves her family to the rule from the royal palace. To keep her safe and secure, she'll need a group of skilled handmaidens who can be her assistants, confidantes, defenders, and decoys. Each girl is selected for her particular talents, but it will be up to Padmé to unite them as a group. When Naboo is invaded by forces of the Trade Federation, Queen Amidala and her handmaidens will face the greatest test - of themselves and of each other.

Ten years ago the Sythians invaded the galaxy with one goal: to wipe out the human race. Now the survivors are hiding in the last human sector of the galaxy: Dark Space--once a place of exile for criminals, now the last refuge of mankind.

AIDAN is the AI you'll love to hate. The advanced AI system was supposed to protect a fleet of survivors who'd escaped the deadly attack on Kerenza IV. AIDAN was supposed to be infallible. But in the chaotic weeks and months that followed, it became clear that something was terribly, terribly wrong with AIDAN....

This year’s selection of science fiction and fantasy stories, chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and bestselling author of the Divergent series Veronica Roth, showcases a crop of authors that are willing to experiment and tantalize readers with new takes on classic themes and by exchanging the ordinary for the avant-garde. Folktales and lore come alive, the dead rise, the depths of space are traversed, and magic threads itself through singular moments of love and loss, illuminating the circulatory nature of life, death, the in-between, and the hereafter.

John Lee has left Earth behind him as he travels to the capital of the Galactic Council. Seeking rest and an answer to what the enigmatic System is, John plans to spend his time reading and researching on Irvina. But fate has other plans for the human Paladin. Faced with a new quest and a Galactic Society that is as unfair to its citizens as it was to Earth, John must decide if his desire for a quieter life outweighs his conscience.

The sci-fi saga that began with the breakout best seller Illuminae continues onboard the Jump Station Heimdall, where two new characters will confront the next wave of the BeiTech assault. Hanna is the station captain's pampered daughter, Nik the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. But while the pair are struggling with the realities of life aboard the galaxy's most boring space station, little do they know that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed right toward Heimdall, carrying news of the Kerenza invasion.

Starseer, pilot, and animal lover Jelena Marchenko wants to prove to her parents that she's ready to captain her own freighter and help run the family business. When she finally talks them into getting a second ship and letting her fly it, it doesn't faze her that the craft is decades old and looks like a turtle. This is the chance she's craved for years. But it's not long before the opportunity to rescue mistreated lab animals lures her from her parentally approved cargo run and embroils her in a battle between warring corporations.

Milton Frederick never had the chance to live out his life as a professional gamer on Earth, mainly because he was abducted by aliens. Unfortunately, he wasn’t returned home after the typical probing associated with such things to tell an unbelievable story to his friends. Instead, he was summarily killed and his consciousness was inserted into a Station Core, a giant, metal, egg-shaped object that could use technology to create traps, Combat Units, and other defenses to protect not just himself, but those he cared about.

In the tradition of Memento and Inception comes a thrilling and scary young adult audiobook about blurred reality where characters in a story find that a deadly and horrifying world exists in the space between the written lines. Seventeen-year-old Emma Lindsay has problems: a head full of metal, no parents, a crazy artist for a guardian whom a stroke has turned into a vegetable, and all those times when she blinks away, dropping into other lives so ghostly and surreal it's as if the story of her life bleeds into theirs.

George's parents, who have always been wary of technology, warn him about their new neighbors: Eric is a scientist and his daughter, Annie, seems to be following in his footsteps. But when George befriends them and Cosmos, their super-computer, he finds himself on a wildly fun adventure, while learning about physics, time, and the universe. With Cosmos' help, he can travel to other planets and a black hole. But what would happen if the wrong people got their hands on Cosmos?