Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear gives us a future where life and love and identity have so many more options than they do today, in this visonary short story, a Tor.com Original.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    Brenda Peynado's "The Touches" is a Tor.com Original short story set in a post-apocalyptic world Salipa and Telo have perfect lives in the virtual reality world that humanity has retreated to after bacteria and viruses resistant to all medications take over the outside world.But when the robots that take care of the necessities in the dirty outside world start glitching, Salipa must figure out what it means to truly live if they can never return to the world they once knew.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    An artifact of indescribable and irreplicable beauty created by an "extinct" culture has been the basis of another culture's origin stories. The race who created the artifact has survived on a distant world and has sent a representative to reclaim it, throwing everything into question. Inspired by the SF camp in Danzhai, China, which is co-hosted by the Future Administration Authority (FAA) and Wanda Group.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    When a dead body comes through her portal at a time of growing rebellion, Xin is drawn deep into a station-wide conspiracy along with Ouyang Suqing, one of the station’s mysterious, high-ranking starmages.

    The object in question is in the hands of a dangerous crime lord.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    Now, years later, the military has need of her expertise in order to prevent the destruction of their AI-powered fleet.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    He expected to die before they ever discovered what he really is. But he's not dead, and now he has to explain.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    The new janitor, Saga, finds herself in the company of an officious steward-bird, a surly and mysterious engineer, and the shadowy Captain. Who the odd passengers are, and according to what plan the ship travels, is unclear. Just when Saga has begun to understand the inner workings of Skidbladnir, she discovers that something is wrong. Skidbladnir is sick. And it’s up to her and the engineer to fix it.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    A close-knit group of friends, the chance to model a beautiful masculinity, and a vocal implant that lets him sing even better than he did before transitioning. But deep on tour, Tyler realizes he wants more from one of his bandmates, yearns for a love that would never fit the image that has been carefully crafted for him. His manager wants him to be the heartthrob: available, wholesome, and pure. And since his manager gave Tyler his voice, he can always take it away again.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    Now, the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are on an interstellar mission of mercy aboard Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, a living, breathing ship which seems determined to develop a will of its own.When the order receives a distress call from a newly-formed colony, the sisters discover that the bodies and souls in their care—and that of the galactic diaspora—are in danger. And not from void beyond, but from the nascent Central Governance and the Church itself.

     Doctor Orfea Leung has come here to escape her past of mercenary violence. Krissana Khongtip has come here to reinvent herself from haunted spy to holy cyborg. But the utopian peace of Shenzhen is shattered when the haruspices begin committing suicide, and the pair are called upon to solve the mystery—and survive the silent war between machines . . .

    The story of a freed slave and a robot professor, trying to figure out what it means to be in love while they watch old anime from the 21st century.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    "Cold Wind", by Nicola Griffith, is a dark fantasy tale about a woman who enters a Seattle bar on a cold wintry night in the midst of the Christmas holidays, searching for something…or someone.At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

    The other is a thief, who steals lives until a wish can be fulfilled, and a life-changing choice must be made.

    When his assistant Tera recognizes the most recent waterlogged cadaver they bought off the street, though, he finds that his new body is carrying more trouble than he bargained for.