Search Worlds Without End

Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Novella

"One of the best of the year... a compelling novella about a once-famous actress and her devoted manager who get much more publicity of an unfortunate sort when they inadvertently become embroiled with an act of biological terrorism with potentially world-changing results." - Gardner Dozois, Locus ****

Hugo-nominated and Nebula-winning Novella

The year is 2035. After ecological disasters nearly destroyed the Earth, 26 survivors-the last of humanity-are trapped by an alien race in a sterile enclosure known as the Shell. Fifteen-year-old Pete is one of the Six-children who were born deformed or sterile and raised in the Shell. As, one by one, the survivors grow sick and die, Pete and the Six struggle to put aside their anger at the alien Tesslies in order to find the means to rebuild the earth together. Their only hope lies within brief time-portals into the recent past, where they bring back children to replenish their disappearing gene pool.

Meanwhile, in 2013, brilliant mathematician Julie Kahn works with the FBI to solve a series of inexplicable kidnappings. Suddenly her predictive algorithms begin to reveal more than just criminal activity. As she begins to realize her role in the impending catastrophe, simultaneously affecting the Earth and the Shell, Julie closes in on the truth. She and Pete are converging in time upon the future of humanity-a future which might never unfold. Weaving three consecutive time lines to unravel both the mystery of the Earth's destruction and the key to its salvation, this taut adventure offers a topical message with a satisfying twist.

Instead of simply designing clothes, fashion designers now create drug-induced emotional fashions, a new one every three months.

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, January 1997 and was reprinted in Lightspeed, January 2012. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 3 (1998), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is included in the collection Beaker's Dozen (1998).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This science fiction novel tells how the human race is at war with the Ged, a species that is baffled by mankind's ability to turn violence upon itself. In order to defeat the humans, the Ged must first understand them, but they don't anticipate that they will meet opposition from a few humans.

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July 1991. The story can aslo be found in the anthologies What Might Have Been? Volume 3: Alternate Wars (1991), edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg, Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction (1994), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Women of Wonder: The Contemporary Years: SF by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s (1995), edited by Pamela Sargent. The story is included in the collections The Aliens of Earth (1991) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the collection New Under The Sun (2013, with Therese Pieczynski). There are no other known publications available at this time.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology The New Space Opera (2007), edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, October 2012. It can also be found in the anthologies Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition, edited by Rich Horton, and War & Space: Recent Combat (2012), edited by Rich Horton and Sean Wallace.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

"The twenty-first century, it's often remarked, will transform our knowledge of biology, in the same way the twentieth century transformed physics. With knowledge of course, comes application. And with the application of all we are learning about genetic engineering come social and ethical questions, some of the knotty.

This is where science fiction enters, stage left. Scientific laboratories are where the new technologies are rehearsed. Science fiction rehearses the implications of those technologies. What might we eventually do with our new-found power? Should we do it? Who should do it? Who will be affected? How? Is that a good thing or not? For whom?

Of the thirteen stories in this book, eight of them are concerned with what might come out of the beakers and test tubes and gene sequencers of microbiology. Not everything in these stories will come to pass. Possibly nothing in them will; fiction is not predicton. But I hope the stories at least raise questions about the world rushing in on us at the speed --not of light-- but of thought."

Nancy Kress from her introduction

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (1998) - essay by Nancy Kress
• Beggars in Spain - (1991)
• Feigenbaum Number - (1995)
• Margin of Error - (1994)
• Fault Lines - (1995)
• Unto the Daughters - (1995)
• Evolution - (1995)
• Ars Longa - (1994)
• Sex Education - (1996)
• Grant Us This Day - (1993)
• Flowers of Aulit Prison - (1996)
• Summer Wind - (1995)
• Always True to Thee, in My Fashion - (1997)
• Dancing on Air - (1993)

Caroline Bohentin, Joe McLaren, and Robbie Brekke meet at a fashionable private hospital where each has signed up for a new -- expensive and exclusive -- procedure: Previous Life Access Surgery. This procedure removes barriers in the human brain and allows patients to recall memories from all of their previous incarnations throughout human history. But the memories are not under conscious and willful control. After the operation, each patient must begin his or her journey into the past with moments of discovery and surprise, whose meaning and significance are often unclear.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, which is ravaged by plagues that destroy the body's immune defenses, a crisis is building, both medically and politically. The mutated plague virus is destroying people's memories at an ever-increasing rate. And only those who have had the surgery seem to be immune.

As Caroline, Joe, and Robbie begin to remember flashes of previous lives, it becomes more and more evident that they are somehow connected to each other and that their connection has fateful implications for the entire future of the human race.

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, September 2007. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Two (2008), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse (2010), edited by Martin H. Greenberg, and Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse (2015), edited by John Joseph Adams. The story is included in the collection Fountain of Age: Stories (2012).

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Extrasolar (2017), edited by Nick Gevers. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection (2018), edited by Gardner Dozois.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Meeting Infinity (2015), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, Issue 108, May 2019. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 1 (2016), edited by Neil Clarke.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, April 2001. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection (2002), edited by Gardner Dozois, Year's Best SF 7 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and A.I.s (2004), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collections Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories (2005) and AI Unbound: Two Stories of Artificial Intelligence (2012).

Hugo And Nebula Award nominated novella.

Dancers are capable of anything to succeed in the cutthroat world of ballet, grueling workouts, restrictive diets, artificial enhancements... even murder. A talking Doberman, an aging ballerina, and an investigative reporter find themselves embroiled in a world where youth rules and no one is safe. This gripping novella by the Hugo and Nebula-Award winning author of Beggars in Spain is a powerful, yet humorous exploration of the moral ambiguities of genetic engineering and the all-too-tenuous bonds of family.

The story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 1993. It can also be found in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eleventh Annual Collection (1994), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collections Beaker's Dozen (1998), Future Perfect: Six Stories of Genetic Engineering (2012) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Infinity Wars (2017), edited by Jonathan Strahan. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection (2018), edited by Gardner Dozois.

The threat of terrorism and biological warfare become all too real in this riveting thriller when the danger comes from a family's most cherished pets.

Tessa Sanderson, ex-FBI agent, has moved to a sleepy Maryland town to escape her tragic past. When the town's beloved dogs begin viciously attacking pet owners, federal CDC agents determine that the dogs are carrying a mutated flu affecting the aggression center of their brains, for which there is no known cure. Tessa offers to help round up and quarantine the dogs, even though some unconvinced locals are preparing to protect their pets by any means necessary. But she has another reason for getting involved -- someone has been sending her threatening emails in Arabic claiming responsibility for the virus, and Tessa is resolved to go deep undercover to expose this deadly conspiracy.

Combining hard science with thoughtful narrative, this chilling tale of science fiction explores the complex relationships between dogs and their owners.

This story story originally appeared in the anthology Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian (2003), edited by Janis Ian and Mike Resnick. It was reprinted in Lightspeed, November 2010. The story can aslo be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 9 (2004), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection (2004), edited by Gardner Dozois, Lightspeed: Year One (2011), edited by John Joseph Adams and The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women (2014), edited by Alex Dally MacFarlane. It is included in the collection Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories (2008).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, May 2011. The story can also be found in the anthologies Lightspeed: Year One (2011), edited by John Joseph Adams and Year's Best SF 17 (2012), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, April-May 2007 and was reprinted in Lightspeed, August 2013. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 13 (2008), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collections Fountain of Age: Stories (2012) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeaed in Omni, Winter 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3 (2018), and The Eagle Has Landed: 50 Years of Lunar Science Fiction (2019), both edited by Neil Clarke.

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, October 1995. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF (1996), edited by David G. Hartwell, and Armageddons (1999), edited by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann. The story is included in the collections Beaker's Dozen (1998) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, April-May 2009. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 15 (2010), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

Hugo and Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, August 1995. The story can also be found in the collections Beaker's Dozen (1998) and The Body Human: Three Stories of Future Medicine (2012).

This short story originally appeared in Omni, Winter 1995. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Beaker's Dozen (1998).

Science-fiction superstar and multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner Nancy Kress comes to YA in this brain-twisting thriller

How far would you go?

The Collapse has ransacked the economy, making work almost impossible to find and forcing Amy from college hopeful to sole provider for her terminally-ill grandmother and rebellious younger sister. To make ends meet, Amy auditions for a slot on a new reality TV show, which promises both a hefty salary and full medical benefits for her entire family. Somehow, she gets chosen, and she leaps to sign a contract despite her misgivings.

The show in which she'll take part has an irresistible premise: audience members can win millions by predicting the behavior of each member of the cast in a crisis. But the producers are willing to do anything to maintain ratings, including using blatant setups, 24/7 surveillance, and even state-of-the-art holographic technology to simulate danger. But soon, the danger becomes all too real, and Amy--on and off the camera--must fight for her life....

Nebula Award winning and Hugo Award nomintated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2007. The story can also be found in the anthology Nebula Awards Showcase 2009, edited by Ellen Datlow. It is included in the collection Fountain of Age: Stories (2012).

Contains Hugo Award-winning Novella "The Erdmann Nexus" and Nebula Award-winning Novella "The Fountain of Age"

Nine new stories from a long-time star of the science fiction field, reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and Best of the Web.

Kress unpacks the future the way DNA investigators unravelled the double helix: one gene at a time. In many of these stories gene sculpting is illegal yet commonplace and the effects range between slow catastrophe ("End Game"), cosmic ("First Rites"), and tragic ("Safeguard"). Then there's the morning when Rochester disappears and Jenny has to rely on "The Kindness of Strangers." There's Jill, who is kidnapped by aliens and trying to learn the "Laws of Survival." And there's Hope, whose Grandma is regretting the world built "By Fools Like Me."

Table of Contents:

• The Erdmann Nexus - (2008) - novella
• The Kindness of Strangers - (2008) - shortstory
• By Fools Like Me - (2007) - shortstory
• First Rites - (2008) - novelette
• End Game - (2007) - shortstory
• Images of Anna - (2009) - shortstory
• Laws of Survival - (2007) - novelette
• Safeguard - (2007) - novelette
• Fountain of Age - (2007) - novella

This short story originally appeared in Fantasy Magazine, September 2009. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2010, edited by Rich Horton. The story is included in the collection Fountain of Age: Stories (2012).

Read the full story for free at Fantasy Magazine.

This short story originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1988. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection (1989), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Aliens of Earth (1993).

This short story originallly appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, January 1990. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighth Annual Collection (1991), edited by Gardner Dozois, A Woman's Liberation: A Choice of Futures by and About Women (2001), edited by Connie Willis and Sheila Williams, and Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (2008), edited by John Joseph Adams. The story is included in the collection The Aliens of Earth (1993).

This novelette originally appeared in Jim Baen's Universe, December 2007. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (2008), edited by Gardner Dozois, The Best of Jim Baen's Universe II (2008), edited by Eric Flint and Mike Resnick, Alien Contact (2011), edited by Marty Halpern, and Not One of Us: Stories of Aliens on Earth (2018), edited by Neil Clarke. The story is included in the anthology Fountain of Age: Stories (2012) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft (2015), edited by Jennifer Henshaw and Allison Linn. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection (2016), edited by Gardner Dozois.

This short story originally appeared in Omni, October 1994. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twelth Annual Collection (1995), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Nanotech (1998), edited by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann. The story is included in the collections Beaker's Dozen (1998), Future Perfect: Six Stories of Genetic Engineering (2012), and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Twists of the Tale: Cat Horror Stories (1996), edited by Ellen Datlow. There are no other known publications available at this time.

By the middle of the twenty-first century the worldwide fertility rate has declined nearly eighty percent. No one knows why. Now the average age in the United States is fifty-four, and children are treasured and spoilt by those lucky enough to have them and coveted by the vast majority who can't.

Maximum Light is the story of three people from different sections of this very different American society. Nick Clementi is seventy-five years old, a doctor, and an advisor to the Congressional Advisory Committee for Medical Crises. Shana Walders is twenty-six and has just finished her two years in the National Service Corps. Cameron Atuli is twenty-eight, a primcipal dancer with the National Ballet, and has willingly had a portion of his memory removed; what it was and why he did it, he doesn't know.

In her last days of National Service, Shana witnesses something so horrible that it is immediately brought to the attention of Clementi's committee, but so shocking that even the committee would like to believe that it can't be true. And what Cameron can't remember may be the key to the mystery.

In a major science fiction event, Nebula Award winners Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin, Nancy Kress, and Frederik Pohl join forces--under the editorship of Robert Silverberg--to create a triumph of world-building: Murasaki, a science fiction novel in six parts. Murasaki is completely based in hard science and what we know of the Murasaki star system--which actually exists.

Authors Poul Anderson and Frederik Pohl painstakingly constructed the working mechanics of a real star system, projecting the atmosphere, geology, chemistry, flora, and fauna of the two planets on which the work is set. They and four more of America's best science fiction authors--known for their "hard" speculative fiction--used Pohl and Anderson's essays (included as appendixes to this book) as source material to create this amazing story of the earliest human explorations of the twenty-third century--an epic tale of discovery, conflict, and resolution told by the masters of imaginative writing.

Murasaki, star HD 36395... where the gristmill of Darwinism produced two vastly different alien ecologies on two closely revolving planets, circling each other since scouring lightning storms stirred them to life billions of years ago. The two planets are Genji, violent and reckless, filled with a variety of winged life; and Chujo, a cooling world of ancient, crumbling cities, slowly going through its glacial death throes. Both planets are host to intelligences that are strange in ways Man can only guess at...and the planets have an eerie connection that will soon come to fruition after the first human explorers arrive. Exceeding light-speed for twenty years and decelerating by plasma exhaust drive, the first ship bearing humans arrives at Murasaki. The wealth, pride, and future of nations depend upon the outcome as the first contact team sets foot on a Murasaki-system world--while the hope of mankind, a planet capable of supporting human life, awaits the first explorer to touch the strangely colored alien soil....

Contains:

• Introduction (Murasaki) - essay by Robert Silverberg
• The Treasures of Chujo - novelette by Frederik Pohl
• Genji - novelette by David Brin
• Language - novelette by Poul Anderson
• World Vast, World Various - novella by Gregory Benford
• A Plague of Conscience - novelette by Greg Bear
• Birthing Pool - novelette by Nancy Kress
• Appendix A: Design for Two Worlds (Murasaki) - essay by Poul Anderson
• Appendix B: Murasaki's Worlds (Murasaki) - essay by Frederik Pohl

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in the French anthology Destination 3001, edited by Robert Silverberg and Jacques Chambon in October 2000. The first English publication was in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2004. The story can also be found in the anthologies Science Fiction: The Best of 2004 (2005) edited by Karen Haber and Jonathan Strahan, Nebula Awards Showcase 2007, edited by Mike Resnick and Aliens: Recent Encounters (2013), edited by Alex Dally MacFarlane. It is incuded in the collections Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories (2008) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2006. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 12 (2007), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Kramer. The story is included in the collection Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories (2008).

Blending a focus on cutting-edge technology with deep emotional impacts, this enticing collection draws its stories from various Year's-Best and Reader's Choice lists. The pathos of the human condition is explored in such stories as "My Mother, Dancing" in which seedlings are planted and those responsible must decide if they will play God with them, or let natural selection progress; or in "Nano Comes To Clifford Falls," where nanotechnology brings every wish to everyone - yet dire problems still ensue. The naratives revealmany forms of artificial intellegence including a persecuted slave in "Computer Virus," a controlling force in the universe in "Mirror Image," or even one thats entirely indifferent to humans in "Savior". From the center of the galaxy to the swamps of Earth, all 13 inventive tales offer a trademark mix of hard science fiction interacting with flawed humanity.

Table of Contents:

• Nano Comes to Clifford Falls - (2006)
• Patent Infringement - (2002)
• Computer Virus - (2001)
• Product Development - (2006)
• The Most Famous Little Girl in the World - (2002)
• Savior - (2000)
• EJ-ES - (2003)
• Shiva in Shadow - (2004)
• First Flight - (2006)
• To Cuddle Amy - (2000)
• Wetlands Preserve - (2000)
• Mirror Image - (2005)
• My Mother, Dancing - (2004)

Told from the perspective of several generations of teenagers, this science fiction novel involves an Earth ravaged by mankind, high-tech manipulative aliens, and advanced genetics. Early in the 21st century, global warming has caused sickness and death among plants, animals, and humans. Suddenly aliens contact and genetically modify a group of 14-year-olds, inviting them to visit their spacecraft. After several months of living among the aliens and studying genetics, the students discover that the aliens have been manipulating them and rebel. Upon their return to Earth, the girls in the group discover that they are pregnant and can only wonder what form their unborn children will take. Generations later, the offspring of these children seek to use their alien knowledge to change their genetic code, to allow them to live and prosper in an environment that is quickly becoming uninhabitable from the dual scourges of global warming and biowarfare. But after all the generations of change, will the genetically modified creatures resemble their ancestors, or will nothing human remain?

Caro Soames-Watkins, a talented neurosurgeon whose career has been upended by controversy, is jobless, broke, and the sole supporter of her sister, a single mother with a severely disabled child.

When she receives a strange job offer from Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sam Watkins, a great uncle she barely knows, desperation forces her to take it in spite of serious suspicions.

Watkins has built a mysterious medical facility in the Caribbean to conduct research into the nature of consciousness, reality, and life after death. Helped in his mission by his old friend, eminent physicist George Weigert, and young tech entrepreneur Julian Dey, Sam has gone far beyond curing the body to develop a technology that could solve the riddle of mortality.

Two obstacles stand in their way: someone on the inside is leaking intel and Watkins' failing body must last long enough for the technology to be ready.

As danger mounts, Caro finds more than she bargained for, including murder, love, and a deeper understanding into the nature of reality.

"One," by Nancy Kress, is a science fiction novella about an angry young boxer who, after experiencing a concussion in a bout, is able to sense what people are thinking and predict their every move. He finds this useful in boxing but not great for personal relationships and turns to artificial means to deaden the sensations.

This novella can be found in Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection (2014).

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Nebula Award winning short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1985. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection (1986), edited by Gardner Dozois, Nebula Awards 21 (1986), edited by George Zebrowski, The Best from Fantasy & Science Fiction: A 40th Anniversary Anthology (1989), edited by Edward L. Ferman, The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 (1993), edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery, Future on Ice (1998), edited by Orson Scott Card, New Skies: An Anthology of Today's Science Fiction (2003), edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and Women of Futures Past (2016), edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

It is included in the collections Trinity and Other Stories (1985) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, May 2002. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 8 (2003), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories (2008).

Listen to the full story for free at EscapePod.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Twelve Tomorrows (2013), edited by Stephen Cass, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld, Issue 117, June 2016. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection (2014), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, January 2007. The story can also be found in the collection Fountain of Age: Stories (2012).

Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2000. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection (2001), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collections Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories (2008) and AI Unbound: Two Stories of Artificial Intelligence (2012).

Operative Renata Black has a serious problem: an ordinary self-driving house. But this house, causing a traffic snarl, also has the Org's teal paint on the windowsill.

In 2022, GMOs were banned. A biopharmaceutical caused the Catastrophe: worldwide economic and agricultural collapse, and personal tragedy for lawyer Caroline Denton and her son. Ten years later, as Renata Black, she is a member of the Org, an underground group of scientists hunted by the feds. But the Org's illegal food-research might just hold the key to rebuilding the worlds' food supply.

Now there's a mole in the Org, and Renata is the only one who can find out who it is. At risk is the possibility of an even more devastating climate collapse. For answers, she will go to her legal clients from the Quinault Nation. Will there be time to reveal the solutions that the world has not been willing to face?

Asimov's Readers Award Finalist Novella

In a future United States, automation technology provided by alien visitors has made large numbers of people unemployed, scraping for survival outside of wealthy enclaves where the rich live in luxury and plenty. A gifted young woman who has grown up poor is given the chance to join the wealthy people, but after a while her enjoyment of her new situation sours, and, realizing that she really wants to change things for the poor, she joins an underground rebellion.

This novella originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, March-April 2020. Read it for free at the publisher's website.

This novella originally appeared in the anthology Between Worlds (2004) edited by Robert Silverberg, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, May 2014. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Second Annual Collection (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Final Frontier (2018), edited by Neil Clarke. The story is included in the collections Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories (2008) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

This short story originally appeared in IEEE Spectrum, June 2014, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, April 2017. It is included in the collection The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction (1998), edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 4 (1999), edited by David G. Hartwell.

The aliens appeared one day, built a base on the moon, and put an ad on the internet:

"We are an alien race you may call the Atoners. Ten thousand years ago we wronged humanity profoundly. We cannot undo what has been done, but we wish humanity to understand it. Therefore we request twenty-one volunteers to visit seven planets to Witness for us. We will convey each volunteer there and back in complete safety. Volunteers must speak English. Send requests for electronic applications to witness@Atoners.com."

At first, everyone thought it was a joke. But it wasn't.

This is the story of three of those volunteers, and what they found on Kular A and Kular B.

Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Future Histories: Award-winning Science Fiction Writers Predict Twenty Tomorrows for Communications (1997), edited by Stephen McClelland. It was later reprinted in Asimov's Science Fiction, April 1998. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection (1998), edited by Gardner Dozois.

For over a decade, Nancy Kress has written a succession of science-fantasy stories in which a depth of imagination is conjoined to an uncommon perception of human nature. Even Kress's most committed partisans, however, were unprepared for the appearance of her two awesomely accomplished nouvelles, "Beggars in Spain, " and "And Wild for to Hold." The former - a Hugo and Nebula recipient - has become an acclaimed novel; the latter - a time-travel adventure involving Anne Boleyn - explores the uneasy interface between technology and humanity as one of the eighteen stories in this outstanding collection.

Table of Contents:

• The Price of Oranges - (1989) - novelette
• Glass - (1987) - shortstory
• People Like Us - (1989) - shortstory
• Cannibals - (1987) - novelette
• To Scale - (1993) - shortstory
• Touchdown - (1990) - shortstory
• Down Behind Cuba Lake - (1986) - shortstory
• In a World Like This - (1988) - shortstory
• Philippa's Hands - (1988) - shortstory
• Inertia - (1990) - novelette
• Phone Repairs - (1986) - shortstory
• The Battle of Long Island - (1993) - novelette
• Renaissance - (1989) - shortstory
• Spillage - (1988) - shortstory
• The Mountain to Mohammed - (1992) - shortstory
• Craps - (1988) - shortstory
• And Wild for to Hold - (1991) - novella
• In Memoriam - (1988) - shortstory

Nancy Kress, winner of multiple awards for her science fiction and fantasy, ranges through space and time in this stunning collection. Anne Boleyn is snatched from her time stream--with unexpected consequences for two worlds. A far-future spaceship brings religion to a planet that already harbors shocking natives. People genetically engineered to never need to sleep clash with those who do. A scientific expedition to the center of the galaxy discovers more than anyone bargained for. A woman finds that "people like us" does not mean what she thinks it does.

Praised for both her hard SF and her complex characters, Nancy Kress brings a unique viewpoint to twenty-one stories, the best of a long and varied career that has won her five Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• And Wild For to Hold
• Out of All Them Bright Stars
• Pathways
• Dancing on Air
• Unto the Daughters
• Laws of Survival
• Someone To Watch Over Me
• Flowers of Aulit Prison
• Price of Oranges
• By Fools Like Me
• Casey's Empire
• Shiva in Shadow
• Grant Us This Day
• Kindness of Strangers
• End Game
• My Mother, Dancing
• Trinity
• People Like Us
• Evolution
• Margin of Error
• Beggars in Spain

WHAT LIES BEYOND THE ELEVENTH GATE...

Despite economic and territorial tensions, no one wants the city-states of the Eight Worlds to repeat the Terran Collapse by going to war. But when war accidentally happens, everyone seeks ways to exploit it for gain. The Landry and Peregoy ruling dynasties see opportunities to grab territory, increase profits, and settle old scores. Exploited underclasses use war to fuel rebellion. Ambitious heirs can finally topple their elders' regimes--or try to.

But the unexpected key to either victory or peace lies with two persons uninterested in conquest, profits, or power. Philip Anderson seeks only the transcendent meaning of the physics underlying the universe. Tara Landry, spoiled and defiant youngest granddaughter of dynasty head Rachel Landry, accidentally discovers an eleventh star-jump gate, with a fabulous find on the planet behind it. Her discovery, and Philip's use of it, alter everything for the Eight Worlds.

The ship, which would have looked nothing like a ship to Henry Erdmann, moved between the stars, traveling in an orderly pattern of occurrences in the vacuum flux. Over several cubic light-years of space, subatomic particles appeared, existed, and winked out of existence in nanoseconds. Flop transitions tore space and then reconfigured it as the ship moved on. Henry, had he somehow been nearby in the cold of deep space, would have died from the complicated, regular, intense bursts of radiation long before he could have had time to appreciate their shimmering beauty.

All at once the ship stopped moving.

The radiation bursts increased, grew even more complex. Then the ship abruptly changed direction. It accelerated, altering both space and time as it sped on, healing the alterations in its wake. Urgency shot through it.

Something, far away, was struggling to be born.

A Hugo Award winning novella.

A haunting green island. A stand of trees known as the Golden Grove. In the moonlit darkness, the webs gleam faintly, stirring in the warm night breeze. Arachne and the women sit at their looms around the Grove, weaving tapestries from the silk of the golden spiders, tapestries of life and time, clarity and light, the pattern of their world...

But the Grove is dying.

The spiders are sick--their offspring disfigured, their webs malformed. The mysterious aura is waning, the peace and harmony fading. Shadow falls over Island, strange ships are seen on the horizon, and Arachne fears that the pattern is about to change... forever.

This short story originally appeared on Sci Fiction, May 8, 2002, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld, Issue 123, December 2016. It can also be found in the anthologyThe Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection (2003). The story is included in the collection Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories (2008).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, April 1992. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection (1993), edited by Gardner Dozois, Nebula Awards 28 (1994), edited by James Morrow and Visions of Wonder (1996) edited by David G. Hartwell and Milton T. Wolf. It is included in the collections The Aliens of Earth (1993) and The Body Human: Three Stories of Future Medicine (2012).

Hugo Award nominated novelette.

Harry found the doorway to 1937, and travels there all the time. Now he wants his grandaughter to go there, but he can't take her to 1937, so he brings 1937 to her...

It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, April 1989. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventh Annual Collection (1990), edited by Gardner Dozois, Timegates (1997) edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century (2005), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Harry Turtledove, and As Time Goes By (2015), edited by Hank Davis. It is included in the collections The Aliens of Earth (1993) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

Long out of print, this novel by one of the major voices in contemporary science fiction and fantasy will enthrall you, charm you, and make you care deeply about two of the most engaging characters you're ever likely to meet between the two covers of a book.

Fia, the Storygiver, had come to the backward kingdom of Veliano to practice her special art. In the mist that swirled between her hands, her mind formed tiny figures to act out simple folk tales for the entertainment of the lords and ladies.

But in the court of King Rofdal and his third Queen, Leonore, the story forming in the mist became a tale of twisted passion and shocking betrayal... for waiting in Veliano was the man Fia both loved and feared. Waiting was a web of intrigue to trap her in a struggle for ultimate power - a magic linked to the dark legend of the White Pipes... the secret instrument of Fia's fate, and the fate of all she held dear.

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, August 2000. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 6 (2001), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is included in the collection Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories (2008).

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, October 1984, and was reprinted in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 102, November 2018. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection (1985), edited by Gardner Dozois, Best SF of the Year #14 (1985), edited by Tery Carr, and Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collections Trinity and Other Stories (1985), Future Perfect: Six Stories of Genetic Engineering (2012) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

Table of Contents:

• Explaining Nancy Kress - (1985) - essay by Gene Wolfe
• With the Original Cast - (1982) - novelette
• Casey's Empire - (1981) - shortstory
• Talp Hunt - (1982) - shortstory
• Against a Crooked Stile - (1979) - shortstory
• Explanations, Inc. - (1984) - shortstory
• Shadows on the Cave Wall - (1981) - novelette
• Ten Thousand Pictures, One Word - (1984) - shortstory
• Night Win - (1983) - novelette
• Borovsky's Hollow Woman - (1983) - novelette by Jeff Duntemann and Nancy Kress
• Out of All Them Bright Stars - (1985) - shortstory
• Trinity - (1984) - novella

Caught in the Crossfire

A human colony settles on a distant planet, a colony formed by Jake Holman-- a man trying to escape a dark past. But as this diverse group of thousands comes to terms with their new lives on a new world, they make a startling discovery: primitive humanoid aliens. There are only a few isolated villages, and the evidence seems to indicate they aren't native to the planet--despite the aliens living in thatched huts and possessing only primitive tools.

A science fiction epic.

It began with Crossfire: a far-future novel of planetary colonization and alien first contact. Jake Holman, a man trying to escape a dark past, brought together a diverse group of thousands to settle on a new world. But instead the humans found themselves caught in the crossfire of a galaxy-spanning war between two disparate species: aggressive, militaristic humanoids known as Furs and passive, plantlike creatures known as Vines.

Having cast their lots with the peaceful Vines, humanity faces all-out war against the technologically superior Furs. Our only hope? A virus designed by the Vines to remove all aggressiveness from the Furs. Can it spread fast enough to save not only Holman's colony, but the rest of humanity? And at what price to the Furs?

Driven by strong ideas and deep moral questions, and peopled with real-as-life characters, Crucible shows Kress at the top of her form, amply demonstrating why she has been one of science fiction finest authors of the past twenty years.

A group of teenagers from the late twentieth century is brought from their own time into a future utopia of the twenty-sixth century, where they are assigned the task of battling the Panurish, grotesque humanoids possessing a third eye.

Here is the ssential index of one year in SF and fantasy, full of winners and nominees of the prestigious Nebula Award. For groundbreaking works in the genre, the Nebula is perhaps the highest honor in the field-and a beacon for readers looking for the best quality science fiction and fantasy around.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Entering the Field - (2003) - essay by Nancy Kress
• The 2001 Nebula Awards Ballot - (2003) - essay by uncredited
• The Cure for Everything - (2000) - shortstory by Severna Park
• The Ultimate Earth - (2000) - novella by Jack Williamson
• Betty Ballantine Appreciation - (2003) - essay by Shelly Shapiro
• Louise's Ghost - (2001) - novelette by Kelly Link
• Undone - (2001) - novelette by James Patrick Kelly
• My Wife Returns As She Would Have It - (2000) - poem by Bruce Boston
• January Fires - (2001) - poem by Joe Haldeman
• The Elephants on Neptune - (2000) - shortstory by Mike Resnick
• Commentary: Joys and Jeremiada - (2003) - essay by Geoffrey A. Landis
• Commentary: Joys and Jeremiada - (2003) - essay by Scott Edelman
• Commentary: Joys and Jeremiada - (2003) - essay by Terry Bisson
• Commentary: Joys and Jeremiada - (2003) - essay by Andy Duncan
• Commentary: Joys and Jeremiada - (2003) - essay by Mindy L. Klasky
• Commentary: Joys and Jeremiada - (2003) - essay by Ellen Datlow
• Commentary: Joys and Jeremiada - (2003) - essay by Harry Turtledove
• Commentary: Joys and Jeremiada - (2003) - essay by Michael Cassutt
• The Quantum Rose (excerpt) - (2000) - shortfiction by Catherine Asaro

The mysterious deaths of a showgirl in Las Vegas and a scientist in Boston lead FBI agent Robert Cavanaugh into a deadly investigation into the links between the Mafia and a biotech company specializing in recombinant DNA research.

FBI Agent Robert Cavanaugh has been transferred from the organized crime unit to the slow-paced field office for southern Maryland, where the biggest federal crime is the condition of the roads.

But things take an unpleasant turn when a nurse at a local hospital notices a sudden increase in the incidence of fatal strokes among otherwise healthy black adults. The trail leads to a new strain of malaria that causes rapid blood clotting in people with sickle-cell trait, who begin to die.

It's an unlikely natural mutation, yet there's no hard evidence of human intervention. Did a fringe hate-group arrange for a bioengineered weapon to decimate the African-American population? As more people die, Cavanaugh must convince the FBI to look for the answers before it becomes an epidemic that threatens millions of lives ... or even race war.

Nebula and Sturgeon Award winning novelette. It originally appeared Asimov's Science Fiction, October-November 1996. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fourteenth Annual Collection (1997), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Nebula Awards 33 (1999), edited by Connie Willis. It is included in the collections Beaker's Dozen (1998) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015).

Humanity has expanded out into other solar systems using the remnants of an ancient technology of star gates. But now an alien race has also discovered the gates. In this situation, a new planet is discovered inhabited by a human-like race, and a team of scientists is sent to contact and study them. It isnt long before the killer aliens arrive and the whole powerkeg explodes.

A strange artifact has been discovered on a distant planet, an artifact that may be the key to humanity's salvation. For we at war with the Fallers, an alien race bent on nothing short of genocide, and this is a war we are losing. The artifact is not only a powerful weapon, but possibly the rosetta stone to a lost superscience . . . a superscience that the Fallers may have already decoded. Or it may be a doomsday machine that could destroy the very fabric of space.

Nancy Kress cemented her reputation in SF with the publication of her multiple-award-winning novella, "Beggars in Spain," which became the basis for her extremely successful Beggars Trilogy (comprising Beggars in Spain, Beggars and Choosers, and Beggars Ride).

And now she brings us Probability Space, the conclusion of the trilogy that began with Probability Moon and then Probability Sun, which is centered on the same world as Kress's Nebula Award-winning novelette, "Flowers of Aulit Prison." The Probability Trilogy has already been widely recognized as the next great work by this important SF writer.

In Probability Space, humanity's war with the alien Fallers continues, and it is a war we are losing. Our implacable foes ignore all attempts at communication, and they take no prisoners. Our only hope lies with an unlikely coalition: Major Lyle Kaufman, retired warrior Marbet Grant, the Sensitive who's involved with Kaufman Amanda, a very confused fourteen-year-old girl and Magdalena, one of the biggest power brokers in all of human space.

As the action moves from Earth to Mars to the farthest reaches of known space, with civil unrest back home and alien war in deep space, four humans--armed with little more than an unproven theory--try to enter the Fallers' home star system. It's a desperate gamble, and the fate of the entire universe may hang in the balance.

Hugo and Nebula Award winning novella.

Leisha Camden is a genetically engineered 'Sleepless.' Her ability to stay awake all the time has not only made her more productive, but the genetic modifications have also given the 'Sleepless' a higher IQ and may even make them immortal. Are they the future of humanity? Or will the small community of 'sleepless' be hunted down as freaks by a world that has grown wary of its newest creation?

The story originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, April 1991 and has been published as a seperate novella twice. It is included in the anthologies:

• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection (1992), edited by Gardner Dozois
• Nebula Awards 27 (1993), edited by James Morrow
• The New Hugo Winners, Volume IV: (1992-94) (1997), edited by Gregory Benford
• The Science Fiction Century (1997), edited by David G. Hartwell
• The Hard SF Renaissance (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
• Best of the Best Volume 2: 20 Years of the Year's Best Short Science Fiction Novels (2007), edited by Gardner Dozois.

The story is included in the collections Beaker's Dozen (1998) and The Best of Nancy Kress (2015). It was expanded to the full novel Beggars In Spain (1993).

Born in 2008, Leisha Camden is beautiful, extraordinarily intelligent... and one of an ever-growing number of human beings who have been genetically modified to never require sleep.

Once she and "her kind" were considered interesting anomalies. Now they are outcasts - victims of blind hatred, political repression and shocking mob violence meant to drive the "Sleepless" from human society... and, ultimately, from the Earth itself.M

But Leisha Camden has chosen to remain behind in a world that envies and fears her "gift" - a world marked for destruction in a devastating conspiracy of freedom... and revenge.

In Beggars and Choosers, Kress returns to the same future world created in her earlier work, an America strangely altered by genetic modifications...

Most of the world is on the verge of collapse, overburdened by a population of jobless drones and racked by the results of irresponsible genetic research and nanotechnology. Will the world be saved? And for whom?

Now the trilogy is completed in Beggars Ride, a compelling novel of science fiction that raises one of the most ambitious and large-scale works of the decade to the status of finished masterpiece. Kress, a writer who had been appropriately compared to H.G. Wells and Aldous Huxley, deals with evolutionary forces, genetic engineering, technological progress, and social and class conflict, confronting enduring issues that face human society in this century and the next.

The Sleepless and the SuperSleepless, two generations of genetically modified superhumans, are now in conflict with each other, and with the spectrum of normal humanity, whose radical division into the rich and poor has made a parody of democracy in the twenty-second century. Human civilization has been transformed. Now it may be destroyed. And if it falls, what kind of world is left, what kind of humanity?

Nebula-nominated Novella

"Annabel Lee" by Nancy Kress:

Set in the near future, this story gives us a world increasingly hostile to new ideas as religious fundamentalism dictates social agenda, and where the primary use of science is to bolster these very same uncompromising attitudes.

This is a world we can imagine very easily, since the author takes us down the sliding slope very gently. Years pass, and attitudes change a little bit here... and a little bit there... until the cumulative impact of these cultural changes becomes a thought-controlling nightmare.

Annabel Lee is a child of this society, but unique. She has been infected by a long-dormant alien parasite. But this "infection" may be the only hope for the world - if she can survive long enough.

The companion novelette "Strange Attraction" by Therese Pieczynski predates Kress' world and takes us to back to 1980s Nicaragua, where a strange demon lurks.

Nebula-nominated novella

Aliens have landed in New York. After several months of no explanations, they finally reveal the reason for their arrival.

The news is not good.

Geneticist Marianne Jenner is having a career breakthrough, yet her family is tearing itself apart. Her children Elizabeth and Ryan constantly bicker, agreeing only that an alien conspiracy is in play. Her youngest, Noah, is addicted to a drug that keeps temporarily changing his identity. The Jenner family could not be further apart. But between the four of them, the course of human history will be forever altered.

Earth's most elite scientists have ten months to prevent a disaster--and not everyone is willing to wait.

Anthologized in Paula Guran's The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2015.

The aliens have arrived... they've landed their Embassy ship on a platform in New York Harbor, and will only speak with the United Nations. They say that their world is so different from Earth, in terms of gravity and atmosphere, that they cannot leave their ship. The population of Earth has erupted in fear and speculation.

One day Dr. Marianne Jenner, an obscure scientist working with the human genome, receives an invitation that she cannot refuse. The Secret Service arrives at her college to escort her to New York, for she has been invited, along with the Secretary General of the UN and a few other ambassadors, to visit the alien Embassy.

The truth is about to be revealed. Earth's most elite scientists have ten months to prevent a disaster--and not everyone is willing to wait.

Ten years after the Aliens left Earth, humanity succeeds in building a ship, Friendship, to follow them home to Kindred. Aboard are a crew of scientists, diplomats, and a squad of Rangers to protect them. But when the Friendship arrives, they find nothing they expected. No interplanetary culture, no industrial base--and no cure for the spore disease.

A timeslip in the apparently instantaneous travel between worlds has occurred and far more than ten years have passed.

Once again scientists find themselves in a race against time to save humanity and their kind from a deadly virus while a clock of a different sort runs down on a military solution no less deadly to all. Amid devastation and plague come stories of heroism and sacrifice and of genetic destiny and free choice, with its implicit promise of conscious change.

The diplomatic mission from Earth to World ended in disaster, as the Earth scientists discovered that the Worlders were not the scientifically advanced culture they believed. Though they brought a limited quantity of the vaccine against the deadly spore cloud, there was no way to make enough to vaccinate more than a few dozen. The Earth scientists, and surviving diplomats, fled back to Earth.

But once home, after the 28-year gap caused by the space ship transit, they find an Earth changed almost beyond recognition. In the aftermath of the spore cloud plague, the human race has been reduced to only a few million isolated survivors. The knowledge brought back by Marianne Jenner and her staff may not be enough to turn the tide of ongoing biological warfare.