Survival Space Fantasy

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, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

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.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 27 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2017.

After their recent victory over an incredibly powerful alien foe, Captain John Duggan and his crew are expecting some downtime while the ESS Crimson is refitted. It is not to be. In a war for survival, the Space Corps' best officer can't be permitted to languish on base with his feet up. Soon after landing on planet Atlantis, Duggan gets the call once more. This time there's to be no holding back - his superiors want him to take the fight to the enemy, rather than wait it out in Confederation Space.

Captain John Duggan and his crew are stranded deep in hostile territory. Their spaceship, the ESS Crimson is damaged beyond repair. Enemy warships hunt them, eager to locate the vessel which has caused so much damage to their military. All seems lost. Duggan is not a man to go down without a fight. Determined to take matters into his own hands, he leads his squad across the surface of an inhospitable planet in order to make a raid upon an enemy base.

One last mission. It's a promise familiar to Captain John Duggan. Each final battle has another following it, with another after that. They come to him with the inevitability of death. His latest task seems no different to the others before it. As events progress, Duggan begins to believe - he starts to see how his life might change at the end of it and how the lives of billions in the Confederation may be saved if he succeeds. This time, his superiors plan no less than the destruction of the Helius Blackstar itself.

The earth has died many times, and it always comes back looking different. In an exhilarating, surprising exploration of our planet, Craig Childs takes listeners on a firsthand journey through apocalypse, touching the truth behind the speculation. Apocalyptic Planet is a combination of science and adventure that reveals the ways in which our world is constantly moving toward its end and how we can change our place within the cycles and episodes that rule it.

Liam and Phoebe, having barely escaped our exploding sun with their lives, are in stasis for the decade-long journey to the rogue planet Delphi, where they hope to meet up with the rest of the human refugees, find help for their injured parents, and pass along the devastating things they discovered on Mars: that someone destroyed their world intentionally, and that that someone might still be after them, trying to finish the job. Phoebe is carrying her own dark secret. One that finds her waking up secretly at various points in their journey, changing their path through space.

Still searching for the Emperor’s Seat, Zelia, Talen and Mekki arrive on the jungle planet of Weald. Accompanied by the ingenious alien ape Fleapit and the dashing Rogue Trader Amity, Zelia and her friends become embroiled in a war between two brutish tribes of green-skinned orks! Only by using their wits can they hope to survive this savage encounter....

After escaping Earth and creating a new life on Salvation-1, Tessa thought her days of fighting were over. But nothing turned out the way the survivors expected, and now humanity is facing a new threat. One that may destroy them for good. VA-246 was supposed to be humanity’s chance to start over, but making it there was only the beginning.

Esna Donovan was stranded on a planet full of people that didn't look like her as a child along with her brother. Their father was murdered, leaving them sitting in their spaceship waiting for his return. They remember almost nothing from before that time, when two Calavari who were business associates of their father took them in and told them they could never be seen outside their full body armor. They've honored their father's dying wish, living and working on the Calavari's farm while exploring the barren wastelands looking for bits of technological salvage.

Engineer Naomi Reyes did not come to the Moon to preach. She came to keep people alive. But as storms scrape the solar plain, a blackout tests courage, and an eclipse thins the light, Naomi and her small crew learn to survive by writing a humble Rule of Life on the habitat wall and living it with their hands. Under Commander Park’s steady quiet, botanist Tamsin coaxes green from dust, electrician Olu listens to wires like hymns, and Naomi chooses stewardship over spectacle when the world asks for a show. From a lab on Earth, Leah, Arthur, and Jonah fight for truth with signatures that cost.

In 2019, three years after recovery of a powerful Hopi artifact from a mystery cave in Arizona, Una Waters finds herself on special assignment from D.C. to Chinatown in New York City. Unexplained acts of violence, including a cyber breach at the NYPD threaten to disrupt the lives of immigrants, forcing military intervention from General Ashcroft, now with U.S. Cyber Security. When newshound and compadre Jack Howser arrives to investigate a reported UFO sighting, Una begins to realize an episode of "missing time" at the Chinese New Year's parade may hold the answers.

Car-En, a ringstation anthropologist on her first Earth field assignment, observes a Viking-like village in the Harz mountains. As Car-En secretly observes the Happdal villagers, she begins to see them as more than research subjects (especially Esper, a handsome bowhunter). When Esper’s sister is taken by an otherwordly sword-wielding white-haired man, she can no longer stand by as a passive witness. Knowing the decision might end her career, she cuts off communication with her advisor and pursues the abductor into the mountains.

The colony of Tellus was meant to be a beacon of progress on the rugged world of Val 4, a testament to humanity's ability to tame the wilds of space. Built on the bones of an abandoned settlement, it is a place of ambition and opportunity, where scientists, corporate interests, and frontier settlers carve out a living against an unforgiving landscape. But something is wrong beneath the surface.

The year is 2072. Soon a volcanic eruption will trigger catastrophic devastation, and the only way out is up. While the world's leaders, scientists, and engineers oversee the frantic production of a space fleet meant to save humankind, their children are brought in for a weekend of touring the Lazarus|a high-tech prototype spaceship. But when the apocalypse arrives months ahead of schedule, First Daughter Leigh Chen and a handful of teens from the tour are the only ones to escape the planet.

Als 2024 der NASA-Satellit Sentinel I über dem Südpol des Mondes online geht, entdeckt er etwas Sonderbares: Eine Reflexion inmitten des Shackleton-Kraters, die es eigentlich gar nicht geben dürfte. Zudem empfängt die Radioantenne von derselben Stelle ein mysteriöses Signal, das einem komplexen Muster folgt. Die Aufregung bei NASA und Pentagon ist groß, da es nur eine Erklärung geben kann: Auf dem Mond liegt ein außerirdisches Artefakt tief in der ewigen Dunkelheit von Shackleton verborgen. Und es will gefunden werden.

Im unendlichen Nichts des Weltraums erwacht ein einsamer Astronaut aus der Kryostase. Etwas ist schiefgegangen. Er weiß weder wer, noch wo er ist. Erst nach und nach findet er heraus, dass er Teil einer ihm unbekannten Crew war, die mehrere Jahrhunderte lang geschlafen hat. Alle anderen sind tot, in ihren Stasistanks gestorben. Einzig ein beschädigter, aber freundlicher Roboter scheint sich mit ihm an Bord zu befinden. Das Raumschiff ist in einem schlechten Zustand und leidet unter merkwürdigen Fehlern: Türen, die sich öffnen und schließen, Lichter, die flackern.

Tina had no choice but to escape Aurora Station on board the Starfighter Manila: The ship was about to blow up and would have killed the entire station. But they're in deep trouble. They have less than half the crew number necessary to fly the ship safely, the engines are damaged and Tina's travel companions are on a different ship. Aurora Station fell into pirate hands, so returning is not an option and the ship isn't safe to fly long distances. On top of that, several crew members may have been exposed to genetic treatment by the pirates.

Jack Hunter's greatest adversary, the man who pushed him to his limits, was a terrorist who brought a city to its knees. It took everything Jack had to capture him the last time, and now, that man is loose again. But Leo isn't interested in simply killing Jack. No, what he really wants is to make Jack suffer. To break his spirit. Keli Armana wishes to return to her people, to a world where she can use her telepathic skills without restrictions, and she tries to persuade Ben Loranai into leaving with her. But is Ben willing to betray his own government?