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

Edited by Jonathan Strahan.

A ruthless venture capitalist finds love – or something chemically similar – in an Atlanta strip club; a girl in grey conjures a man from a handful of moonshine; an ship blazing a highway between the stars discovers an island of life on a distant gas giant; a boy becomes a man by mastering the sword; a rebellious young woman suffers a strange incarceration; an astronaut shares a lifeboat – and herself – with an unfathomable alien; an infected girl counts the days until she becomes a vampire; an aviatrix and an inventor square off against saboteurs and monstrous brains; a big man travels to a tiny moon to examine an ancient starship covered with flowers...

The depth and breadth of science fiction and fantasy fiction continues to change with every passing year. The twenty-nine stories chosen for this book by award-winning anthologist Jonathan Strahan carefully map this evolution, giving readers a captivating and always-entertaining look at the very best the genre has to offer.

Jonathan Strahan has edited more than twenty anthologies and collections, including The Locus Awards (with Charles N. Brown), The New Space Opera (with Gardner Dozois), and The Starry Rift. He has won the Ditmar, William J. Atheling Jr. and Peter McNamara awards for his work as an anthologist and reviewer, and was nominated for a Hugo Award for his editorial work. Strahan is currently the reviews editor for Locus.

Contents:

• Introduction - Jonathan Strahan
• It Takes Two - Nicola Griffith
• Three Twilight Tales - Jo Walton
• The Night Cache - Andy Duncan
• The Island - Peter Watts
• Ferryman - Margo Lanagan
• A Wild and Wicked Youth - Ellen Kushner
• The Pelican Bar - Karen Joy Fowler
• Spar - Kij Johnson
• Going Deep - James Patrick Kelly
• The Coldest Girl in Coldtown - Holly Black
• Zeppelin City - Michael Swanwick & Eileen Gunn
• Dragon's Teeth - Alex Irvine
• This Wind Blowing, and This Tide - Damien Broderick
• By Moonlight - Peter S. Beagle
• Black Swan - Bruce Sterling
• As Women Fight - Sara Genge
• The Cinderella Game - Kelly Link
• Formidable Caress - Stephen Baxter
• Blocked - Geoff Ryman
• Truth and Bone - Pat Cadigan
• Eros, Philia, Agape - Rachel Swirsky
• The Motorman's Coat - John Kessel
• Mongoose - Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear
• Echoes of Aurora - Ellen Klages
• Before My Last Breath - Robert Reed
• Joboy - Diana Wynne Jones
• Utriusque Cosmi - Robert Charles Wilson
• A Delicate Architecture - Catherynne M. Valente
• The Cat That Walked a Thousand Miles - Kij Johnson
• Recommended Reading - Jonathan Strahan