Fantasy First Contact Science Fiction

He finally escaped the cycle of war and death only to find himself kidnapped, taken to a new universe where nothing makes sense. A world where nothing is familiar and insane robots, killer AI, and otherworldly beings he can hardly comprehend are the norm. He must learn to survive these constant threats to his very survival, all the while learning that these new experiences are changing him, molding him into something new...something extraordinary.

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.

Vanessa doesn't have the luxury of building a happily ever after on a new planet like her fellow alien abduction survivors. She must get back to Earth. Her family needs her, and she can't afford to let them down again. So, she'll find a way to break Clecanian law and get home—even if she has to marry (and betray) a sexy space pirate to do it. Fejo can't believe his luck when Vanessa, a gorgeous human with a sharp tongue, chooses him as her husband. He doesn't know what he did to win her favor, but he's determined to do everything in his power to make her happy.

Anya Nowicki, along with thousands of people around the globe, has found herself a host for alien technology known as the Archive. The Archive allows its hosts to alter their minds and bodies in an instant through holographic menu systems. With the touch of a button, anyone can become super strong, gain magical abilities, purchase a giant robot, or become a master in an almost infinite number of skills ranging from advanced combat techniques to fidget-spinning.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 33 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2020.

There are a million ways to end up in the Alien Bride Lottery, but it takes only one. Every unmarried female human over the age of 21 gets entered once a year. You can also accept extra entries for legal infractions—instead of paying a parking fine, for example, you can request an extra entry. Lots of women do that. I mean, why not? The chances are astronomical that your name will get chosen to be one of the hundred or so women who get shipped off to space every year.

In the future: A united Earth, to deal with the problem of population control, divides its population into classes of citizen and non-gratis. To be born a non-gratis means a life of little freedoms and the constant possibility of being assigned to work on a colony. Lacking citizenship, every aspect of their life is controlled from where they live down to marriage and childbearing regulations. The only possible escape from life as a non-gratis is to qualify for one of the limited slots available for entrance into the military.

Best-selling science fiction superstars Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle combine their talents with those of Steven Barnes in an extraordinary adventure of humankind’s first outpost in the farthest reaches of space. Light years from Earth, colonists land on a planet they name Avalon. It seems like a paradise—until native creatures savagely attack. It will take every bit of intelligence, courage, and military-style discipline to survive.

Stranded on the distant planet Tschai, young Adam Reith is the sole survivor of a space mission who discovers the world is inhabited - not only by warring alien cultures but by human slaves as well, taken early in Earth's history. Reith must find a way off the planet to warn Earth of Tschai's deadly existence.

"Resonance" is supposed to be a dream - that's when your soulmate is chosen for you. And everyone on the ice planet has hooked up with a big, hunky soulmate of their own...except me. So do I want a mate? Heck, yeah. More than anything, all I've ever wanted is to be loved by someone.

Wrench is a Fixer. Someone born to maintain, fix, and correct any and every issue that could go wrong in the habitat he lives in. Someone who makes sure he and his fellow humans can remain on display and entertain their owners as any good human pet would. At least, that’s what he was born to be. He’s taken a different route and joined a resistance faction to help free humanity to become more than just pets to an alien race.

More than 20 years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided alone. Ren has worked hard as the colony's 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment - and harboring a devastating secret.

A colony survives among the icy rings of a planet, hiding from alien robots determined to destroy them … at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers, and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment … a man who can’t feel pain has been bioengineered to be a killing machine, but he refuses to give in to his fate … a man is contacted by three future versions of himself, each trying to save their world from destruction.

There is fortune to be made across the stars. If it doesn't kill him first. When Deadeye, a hotshot space jockey, is captured by pirates, he decides to join the motley group called the Redshift Runners. Maybe they can help him get rich. These Runners aren’t typical interstellar bandits, however. They risk their lives delivering food and supplies to starving colonies in the outer rim.

First of My Kind is the story of Nathan Myers, a Missouri farm boy who, through a chain of events that happens halfway across the galaxy, finds his way from the seat of his Grandfather's tractor to the command of a starship from a lost super race. Nathan will tell you in his own words about the life and death struggles he encounters on his journey. He will tell you about the humor, peril, and pain of his galactic education.

The job is supposed to be easy. All I have to do is deliver a spaceship of living cargo to the vile Uldani and they'll release my brother. If I fail, they'll take it out on him. Except the cargo is something I've never seen before - human females. The one called Frankie is beautiful and soft, and I've already spilled blood for her. Now how am I going to save my brother? Because this human female is mine.

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.

On humanity's first extra-solar mission, the exploration vessel Magellan, or, as she prefers, "Maggie", discovers an alien artifact. Deciding that finding advanced alien life is too important to ignore, Captain Allison Ridgeway chooses to return to Earth while ordering her crew to reverse engineer technology far beyond anything back home. Meanwhile, at mission control, the governments struggle to maintain the existence of aliens a secret while also combating bureaucracy, the military industrial complex, and everyone else who wants a piece of what could skyrocket humanity into a new technological age.

Late in the 21st century, Earth receives what looks like an urgent plea for help from planet Proxima Centauri b in the closest star system to the Sun. Astrophysicists suspect a massive solar flare is about to destroy this heretofore-unknown civilization. Earth's space programs are unequipped to help, but an unscrupulous Russian billionaire launches a secret and highly-specialized spaceship to Proxima b, over four light-years away.

Hacker Kita Yamasaki would do anything to escape the post-apocalyptic landscape that was the result of the Forever Winter. But for a normal person, the only options are the war-hungry nation-state of Ex Cathedra or the isolationist United California. Fortunately, Kita is anything but normal. When she finds a faded brochure for the BC Oasis—an underground greenhouse capable of sheltering a quarter million people—she jumps at the opportunity, even going so far as to steal a fission battery the oasis requires to operate at full capacity.