A human detective and their partner, an enhanced chimpanzee, investigate a strange murder on the subway . . . a smart home goes into lockdown, turning a man's own home into his prison . . . at a robot factory, something has caused the machines to attempt to escape . . . mysterious seeds raining down from deep space could be the first sign of an alien invasion . . . a woman seeks to restore a broken AI, hoping it can help return humanity to better days . . . For decades, science fiction has compelled us to imagine futures both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it's a warning message from a survey ship, a harrowing journey to a new world, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction inspires the imagination and delivers a lens through which we can view ourselves and the world around us. With
The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Four, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and twenty-nine of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2018.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: A State of 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 2018 Recommended Reading List