Cambias, Greg Egan, Charles Coleman Finlay, James Alan Gardner, Dominic Green, Daryl Gregory, Gwyneth Jones, Ted Kosmatka, Mary Robinette Kowal, Nancy Kress, Jay Lake, Paul McAuley, Ian McDonald, Maureen McHugh, Sarah Monette, Garth Nix, Hannu Rajaniemi, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Mary Rosenblum, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Geoff Ryman, Karl Schroeder, Gord Sellar, and Michael Swanwick.Supplementing the stories are the editor’s insightful summation of the year’s events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book both a valuable resource and the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination, and the heart.xi • Acknowledgments (The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection) • (2009) • essay by Gardner Dozoisxiii • Summation: 2008 • (2009) • essay by Gardner Dozois1 • Turing's Apples • (2008) • shortstory by Stephen Baxter16 • From Babel's Fall'n Glory We Fled • (2008) • shortstory by Michael Swanwick (aka From Babel's Fall'n Glory We Fled . . .)32 • The Gambler • (2008) • novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi50 • Boojum • [Boojum] • (2008) • shortstory by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette65 • The Six Directions of Space • (2008) • novella by Alastair Reynolds107 • N-Words • (2008) • shortstory by Ted Kosmatka120 • An Eligible Boy • (2008) • novelette by Ian McDonald140 • Shining Armour • (2008) • shortstory by Dominic Green (aka Shining Armor)154 • The Hero • (2008) • novelette by Karl Schroeder172 • Evil Robot Monkey • (2008) • shortstory by Mary Robinette Kowal175 • Five Thrillers • (2008) • novelette by Robert Reed209 • The Sky That Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and Into the Black • (2008) • shortstory by Jay Lake217 • Incomers • (2008) • shortfiction by Paul J. McAuley233 • Crystal Nights • (2008) • novelette by Greg Egan252 • The Egg Man • (2008) • novelette by Mary Rosenblum270 • His Master's Voice • (2008) • shortstory by Hannu Rajaniemi280 • The Political Prisoner • (2008) • novella by Charles Coleman Finlay327 • Balancing Accounts • (2008) • shortstory by James L. Cambias341 • Special Economics • (2008) • novelette by Maureen F. McHugh362 • Days of Wonder • (2008) • novelette by Geoff Ryman390 • City of the Dead • (2008) • novelette by Paul J. McAuley [as by Paul McAuley ]410 • The Voyage Out • (2007) • shortstory by Gwyneth Jones424 • The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm • (2008) • shortstory by Daryl Gregory439 • G-Men • (2008) • novelette by Kristine Kathryn Rusch466 • The Erdmann Nexus • (2008) • novella by Nancy Kress520 • Old Friends • (2008) • shortstory by Garth Nix526 • The Ray-Gun: A Love Story • (2008) • novelette by James Alan Gardner543 • Lester Young and the Jupiter's Moons' Blues • (2008) • novelette by Gord Sellar568 • Butterfly, Falling At Dawn • (2008) • novelette by Aliette de Bodard585 • The Tear • (2008) • novella by Ian McDonald

    Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 are faced with their most challenging mission yet—rescuing renowned scientist Zefram Cochrane from captors who want to use his skills to conquer the galaxy. Meanwhile, ninety-nine years in the future on the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D, Picard must rescue an important and mysterious person whose safety is vital to the survival of the Federation. As the two crews struggle to fulfill their missions, destiny draws them closer together until past and future merge—and the fate of each of the two legendary starships rests in the hands of the other vessel...

    The Federation is at peace. What better time for two legendary starship captains to set aside the demands of duty and take some well-deserved time off? When Kirk and Picard arrive on Bajor to dive among the ruins of an ancient sunken city, things are far worse than they had planned.

    Dick was a master of science fiction, but he was also a writer whose work transcended genre to examine the nature of reality and what it means to be human. A writer of great complexity and subtle humor, his work belongs on the shelf of great twentieth-century literature, next to Kafka and Vonnegut. Collected here are twenty-one of Dick's most dazzling and resonant stories, which span his entire career and show a world-class writer working at the peak of his powers.In "The Days of Perky Pat," people spend their time playing with dolls who manage to live an idyllic life no longer available to the Earth's real inhabitants. "Adjustment Team" looks at the fate of a man who by mistake has stepped out of his own time. In "Autofac," one community must battle benign machines to take back control of their lives. And in "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon," we follow the story of one man whose very reality may be nothing more than a nightmare. The collection also includes such classic stories as "The Minority Report," the basis for the Steven Spielberg movie, and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," the basis for the film Total Recall. Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick is a magnificent distillation of one of American literature's most searching imaginations.» Introduction by Jonathan Lethem1. Beyond Lies the Wub (wikipedia)2. Roog (wikipedia)3. Paycheck (wikipedia, imdb)4. Second Variety (wikipedia, imdb)5. Imposter (wikipedia)6. The King of the Elves (wikipedia, imdb)7. Adjustment Team (wikipedia, imdb)8. Foster, You're Dead! (wikipedia)9. Upon the Dull Earth (wikipedia)10. Autofac (wikipedia)11. The Minority Report (wikipedia, imdb)12. The Days of Perky Pat (wikipedia)13. Precious Artifact14. A Game of Unchance15. We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (wikipedia, imdb)16. Faith of Our Fathers (wikipedia)17. The Electric Ant (wikipedia)18. A Little Something for Us Tempunauts (wikipedia)19. The Exit Door Leads In (wikipedia)20. Rautavaara's Case (wikipedia)21. I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (wikipedia)

    This space station is strategically located not only because of its orbit about Bajor, but also because of its proximity to the only known stable wormhole in the galaxy. After meeting the other Bajoran and Starfleet personnel assigned to the station, including a former Bajoran freedom fighter and a shapeshifter, Sisko finds himself in that very wormhole and in the midst of a metaphysical experience as the alien inhabitants of the wormhole question the concepts of time and love. Sisko, filled with humanistic hubris, begins to explain these experiences, and resolve his painful past.

    Instead, what he finds at his journey's end is totally unexpected...In the climactic closing episode of the final season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Captain Benjamin Sisko, his destiny inextricably linked to that of the alien entities known as The Prophets, was last seen plunging into the depths of the Bajoran Fire Caves, locked in combat with Gul Dukat. Although he appeared to his new wife Kasady Yates and promised her that he would one day return, his son Jake has not seen him since. In Deep Space Nine: Avatar, a mysterious prophecy sent Jake on an impossible quest to trace his missing father. However, instead of finding his heart's desire, Jake is thrown across the galaxy and saved by the unexpected intervention of a strange ship with an even stranger crew. Sharing their travels and their dangers, he learns important lessons about dealing with his father's loss, and about the truth of the prophecy that sent him here. In the process, he discovers much more than he anticipated; a revelation that will change the world forever for Jake, for Bajor and for Deep Space Nine.

    Maxwell believed that the Cardassians were arming for a new attack on the Federation, and though history eventually proved he was probably correct, the Federation had no choice but to court martial and incarcerate him. Almost twenty years have passed, and now Maxwell is a free man, working as a maintenance engineer on the private science station Robert Hooke, home to crackpots, fringe researchers, and, possibly, something much darker and deadlier. Maxwell’s former crewmate, Chief Miles O’Brien, and O’Brien’s colleague, Lieutenant Commander Nog, have come for a visit. Unfortunately, history has proven that whenever O’Brien and Nog leave Deep Space 9 together, unpredictable forces are set into motion… ™, ®, & © 2016 CBS Studios, Inc. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

    A shocking San Francisco earthquake shakes up Starfleet Academy, entangling cadets Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Uhura—and turns out to have chilling intergalactic implications.

    And, to some extent, that was true. Anakin was dead. From the site of Anakin Skywalker s last stand on the molten surface of the planet Mustafar, where he sought to destroy his friend and former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi a fearsome specter in black has risen. Once the most powerful Knight ever known to the Jedi Order, he is now a disciple of the dark side, a lord of the dreaded Sith, and the avenging right hand of the galaxy s ruthless new Emperor. Seduced, deranged, and destroyed by the machinations of the Dark Lord Sidious, Anakin Skywalker is dead . . . and Darth Vader lives. Word of the events that created him the Jedi Council s failed mutiny against Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, the self-crowned Emperor s retaliatory command to exterminate the Jedi Order, and Anakin s massacre of his comrades and Masters in the Jedi Temple has yet to reach all quarters. On the Outer Rim world of Murkhana, Jedi Masters Roan Shryne and Bol Chatak and Padawan Olee Starstone are leading a charge on a Separatist stronghold, unaware that the tide, red with Jedi blood, has turned suddenly against them. When the three narrowly elude execution and become the desperate prey in a hunt across space it s neither clone soldiers, nor the newly deployed stormtroopers, nor even the wrath of the power-hungry Emperor himself they must fear most. The deadliest threat rests in the hideously swift and lethal crimson lightsaber of Darth Vader behind whose brooding mask lies a shattered heart, a poisoned soul, and a cunning, twisted mind hell-bent on vengeance. For the handful of scattered Jedi, survival is imperative if the light side of the Force is to be protected and the galaxy somehow, someday reclaimed. Yet more important still is the well-being of the twin infants, Leia and Luke Skywalker, the children of Anakin and his doomed bride, Padme Amidala. Separated after Padme s death, they must be made safe at all costs, lest the hope they represent for the future be turned to horror by the new Sith regime and the unspeakable power of the dark side. From the Hardcover edition."