This novella will take the listener to a dystopian future - a world of adults where birthmothers are a privileged class and every child is a celebrity. Death has been conquered, but overcrowding has led to a government-enforced zero population growth. When Janice learns she is pregnant without authorization, she must find a life donor or forfeit her own. For every child born, someone must die. The math is simple, but the politics are complicated. Janice soon finds herself diving into a deep conspiracy.

On September 28th, a geologist working in Death Valley finds a mysterious new cinder cone in very well-mapped area. On October 1, the government of Australia announces the discovery of an enormous granite mountain. Like the cinder cone, it wasn't there six months ago.

Something is happening to planet Earth, and the truth is too terrifying to contemplate

As a psychic warrior in the elite Order of Amazons, Peri is tasked with protecting the last vestiges of her people on the sanctuary planet of Atlantis, no matter the cost. For over a thousand years, she has enjoyed relative immortality, cycling into a freshly cloned body when the old breaks down. But corruption has taken root at the core of the settlement, and cracks are forming in the peaceful façade. Peri is no longer convinced that the mission she has devoted lifetimes to is still worth her loyalty....

There's a reason We Are Legion was named Audible's Best Science Fiction Book of 2016: Its irresistibly irreverent wit! Bob Johansson has just sold his software company for a small fortune and is looking forward to a life of leisure. The first item on his to-do list: Spending his newfound windfall. On an urge to splurge, he signs up to have his head cryogenically preserved in case of death. Then he gets himself killed crossing the street. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself.

Dennis E. Taylor, author of the best-selling Bobiverse trilogy, explores a whole different, darker world in this sci-fi stand-alone. Determined to give his wife and children a better life back home, Ivan Pritchard ventures to the edge of known space to join the crew of the Mad Astra as an asteroid miner. He's prepared for hard work and loneliness—but not the unthinkable. After coming into contact with a mysterious alien substance, Pritchard finds an unwelcome entity sharing his mind, and a disturbing physical transformation taking place.

Jon Ryan is irreverent, cocky, funny, and walks with a swagger. The cocky fighter pilot turned astronaut is also Earth's only chance for survival. The planet Jupiter, thrown off orbit, will destroy Earth in less than a century. Jon volunteers for the most ambitious, desperate mission ever conceived: His consciousness must be transferred into an experimental android host, where he'll live an immortal - and lonely - life. Jon's only companion on his 50-year voyage is his ship's irritable AI.

When DARPA's billion-dollar program to create artificial superintelligence is sabotaged, US operative Cameron Carr is tasked with finding the culprit. He's been on high-stakes missions before, but this time the stakes are nothing less than the future of humanity. Because the race to evolve a superintelligent computer is on, and power players around the world will stop at nothing to get there first.

Neanderthals have developed a radically different civilization on a parallel Earth. A Neanderthal physicist, Ponter Boddit, accidentally passes from his universe into a Canadian underground research facility. Fortunately, a team of human scientists, including expert paleo-anthropologist Mary Vaughan, promptly identifies and warmly receives Ponter. Solving the language problem and much else is a mini-computer, called a Companion, implanted in the brain of every Neanderthal. But it can't help his fellow scientist back in his world, Adikor Huld, when the authorities charge Adikor with his murder.

Emanuel Goldsmith, a famous poet, murdered eight people, then disappeared. Three people want to find him: an aspiring writer, an embittered scientist who wants to use him, and a policewoman who needs to put him in custody before the Selectors, a vigilante organization, get to him first.

From a remote corner of the galaxy, a message is being sent. The continuous beats of a pulsar have become odd, irregular, and artificial. It can only be a code. Frantically, a research team struggles to decipher the alien communication. And what the scientists discover is destined to shake the foundations of empires around this world - from Wall Street to the Vatican.

Twenty-seven years is a long time unless you are trying to save the world. Nick was enjoying a late fall day, happily skipping his English class, when he was interrupted by a little silver ball. A ball that not only spoke, but claimed to be an alien artificial intelligence sent to warn humanity that a xenophobic alien race was on its way to wipe out every man, woman, and child on the Earth. The catch: They would arrive in 27 years.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Neil Clarke has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year's writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome "sensawunda" that the genre has to offer.

Wil Sietinen is driven by duty. Torn between his responsibilities as heir to a preeminent family dynasty while training to be an officer in the galactic military, he would rather design starships than plot political schemes or battle strategies. But when Wil is captured by a mysterious alien enemy, he learns that a brutal war has been secretly waging for centuries… and his unique telekinetic powers are the last hope to end the conflict.

A scientist's claim that he's found the secrets of the universe's origin encoded in DNA sparks a race against time to uncover the truth in this fast-paced thriller of science and faith, power and murder, loss and redemption.

In the near future, a signal is detected coming from the Alpha Centauri system. Mysterious, unintelligible data streams in for ten years. Heather Davis, a professor in the University of Toronto psychology department, has devoted her career to deciphering the message. Her estranged husband, Kyle, is working on the development of artificial intelligence systems and new computer technology utilizing quantum effects to produce a near-infinite number of calculations simultaneously.