The Year's Best Science Fiction - Thirty-Third Annual Collection
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permissions
ACKNOWLEDGMENT IS MADE FOR PERMISSION TO REPRINT THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL:
“The Falls: A Luna Story,” by Ian McDonald. Copyright © 2015 by Ian McDonald. First published in Meeting Infinity (Solaris), edited by Jonathan Strahan. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight,” by Aliette de Bodard. Copyright © 2015 by Aliette de Bodard. First published electronically in Clarkesworld, January 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Ruins,” by Eleanor Arnason. Copyright © 2015 by Eleanor Arnason. First published in Old Venus (Bantam), edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Another Word for World,” by Ann Leckie. Copyright © 2015 by Ann Leckie. First published in Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft (Microsoft & Melcher Publishing, Inc.), edited by Jennifer Henshaw and Allison Linn. Reprinted by permission of Microsoft and Ann Leckie.
“Meshed,” by Rich Larson. Copyright © 2015 by Rich Larson. First published electronically in Clarkesworld, February 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Emergence,” by Gwyneth Jones. Copyright © 2015 by Gwyneth Jones. First published in Meeting Infinity (Solaris), edited by Jonathan Strahan. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Gypsy,” by Carter Scholz. Copyright © 2015 by Carter Scholz. First published in Gypsy, PM Press, 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Astrakhan, the Homburg, and the Red Red Coat,” by Chaz Brenchley. Copyright © 2015 by Chaz Brenchley. First published in Lightspeed, June 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Muses of Shuyedan-18,” by Indrapramit Das. Copyright © 2015 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Bannerless,” by Carrie Vaughn. Copyright © 2015 by Carrie Vaughn. First published in The End Has Come: The Apocalype Triptych, Volume 3 (Broad Reach Publishing), edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Audience,” by Sean McMullen. Copyright © 2015 by Dell Magazines. First published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Rates of Change,” by James S. A. Corey. Copyright © 2015 by Protogen LLC. First published in Meeting Infinity (Solaris), edited by Jonathan Strahan. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Calved,” by Sam J. Miller. Copyright © 2015 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathagan,” by Ian McDonald. Copyright © 2015 by Ian McDonald. First published in Old Venus (Bantam), edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Consolation,” by John Kessel. Copyright © 2015 by John Kessel. First published in Twelve Tomorrows (MIT Technology Review), edited by Bruce Sterling.
“The Children of Gal,” by Allen M. Steele. Copyright © 2015 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Today I Am Paul,” by Martin L. Shoemaker. Copyright © 2015 by Martin L. Shoemaker. First published electronically in Clarkesworld, August 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“City of Ash,” by Paolo Bacigalupi. Copyright © 2015 by Paolo Bacigalupi. First published electronically on Matter, July 27. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Trapping the Pleistecene,” by James Sarafin. Copyright © 2015 by Spilogale, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Machine Learning,” by Nancy Kress. Copyright © 2015 by Nancy Kress. First published in Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft (Microsoft & Melcher Publishing, Inc.), edited by Jennifer Henshaw and Allison Linn. Reprinted by permission of Microsoft and Nancy Kress.
“Inhuman Garbage,” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Copyright © 2015 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Planet of Fear,” by Paul J. McAuley. Copyright © 2015 by Paul J. McAuley. First published in Old Venus (Bantam), edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“It Takes More Muscles to Frown,” by Ned Beauman. Copyright © 2015 by Ned Beauman. First published in Twelve Tomorrows (MIT Technology Review), edited by Bruce Sterling.
“The Daughters of John Demetrius,” by Joe Pitkin. Copyright © 2015 by Dell Magazines. First published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, October 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Silence Like Diamonds,” by John Barnes. Copyright © 2015 by Light Reading. First published electronically in Light Reading, July–August 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author and publisher.
“Billy Tumult,” by Nick Harkaway. Copyright © 2015 by Nick Harkaway. First published in Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany (Rosarium Publishing), edited by Nisi Shawl and Bill Campbell. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Hello, Hello; Can You Hear Me, Hello,” by Seanan McGuire. Copyright © 2015 by Seanan McGuire. First published in Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft (Microsoft & Melcher Publishing, Inc.), edited by Jennifer Henshaw and Allison Linn. Reprinted by permission of Microsoft and Seanan McGuire.
“Capitalism in the 22nd Century or A.I.r” by Geoff Ryman. Copyright © 2015 by Geoff Ryman. First published in Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany (Rosarium Publishing), edited by Nisi Shawl and Bill Campbell. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Ice,” by Rich Larson. Copyright © 2015 by Rich Larson. First published electronically in Clarkesworld, October 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The First Gate of Logic,” by Benjamin Rosenbaum. Copyright © 2015 by Benjamin Rosenbaum. First published in Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany (Rosarium Publishing), edited by Nisi Shawl and Bill Campbell. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“In Panic Town, on the Backward Moon,” by Michael F. Flynn. Copyright © 2015 by Michael F. Flynn. First published in Mission: Tomorrow (Baen), edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt.
“The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill,” by Kelly Robson. Copyright © 2015 by Kelly Robson. First published electronically in Clarkesworld, February 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“No Placeholder for You, My Love,” by Nick Wolven. Copyright © 2015 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fict
ion, August 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Game of Smash and Recovery,” by Kelly Link. Copyright © 2015 by Kelly Link. First published electronically in Strange Horizons, October 17, 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“A Stopped Clock,” by Madeline Ashby. Copyright © 2015 by Madeline Ashby. First published in The Atlantic Council Art of Future Warfare Project: War Stories from the Future (Atlantic Council) edited by August Cole. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Citadel of Weeping Pearls,” by Aliette de Bodard. Copyright © 2015 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.
acknowledgments
The editor would like to thank the following people for their help and support: Susan Casper, Jonathan Strahan, Sean Wallace, Neil Clarke, Gordon Van Gelder, Andy Cox, John Joseph Adams, Ellen Datlow, Sheila Williams, Trevor Quachri, Emily Hockaday, Peter Crowther, William Shaffer, Ian Whates, Paula Guran, Tony Daniel, Liza Trombi, Robert Wexler, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Stephen Cass, Michael Smith, Lynne M. Thomas, Gavin Grant, Kelly Link, Fred Coppersmith, Ian Redman, David Lee Summers, Wendy S. Delmater, Beth Wodzinski, E. Catherine Tobler, Carl Rafala, Edmund R. Schubert, C. C. Finlay, A. C. Wise, Dirk Strasser, Jed Hartman, Rich Horton, Mark R. Kelly, Nick Gevers, Tehani Wessely, Ivor Hartmann, Shahid Mahmod, Tom Easton, Jason Pontin, Giovanna Bortolamedi, Jaym Gates, Eric T. Reynolds, Paula Guran, Andrew Leon Hudson, August Cole, John Morgan, Romain Warnault, Bryant Thomas Schmidt, Karen Bovenayer, Patrick Walsh, Jenny Blackford, Russel B. Farr, Anjula Jalan, Djibril al-Ayad, Renee Zuckerbrot, Elizabeth Bear, Aliette de Bodard, Lavie Tidhar, Robert Reed, Vandana Singh, Alastair Reynolds, Ken Liu, Nancy Kress, Ian McDonald, Chaz Brenchley, Ken Liu, Karl Bunker, Paolo Bacigalupi, Lauren Beukes, Allen M. Steele, Rich Larson, Greg Egan, Nick Harkaway, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Geoff Ryman, John Barnes, Jason Eik Lundberg, Jim DeMaiolo, Carrie Vaughn, Gareth L. Powell, Stephen Baxter, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Indrapramit Das, Kelly Robson, Django Wexler, Sam J. Miller, Paul McAuley, Vonda N. McIntyre, Christopher Rowe, Jim Grimsley, Carter Scholz, Nick Wolven, Naomi Kritzer, Sarah Pinsker, John Kessel, Terry Bisson, David Kunsken, Daniel Abraham, James Sarafin, Gwyneth Jones, Michael F. Flynn, Martin L. Shoemaker, Sean McMullen, Albert E. Cowdrey, Bill Johnson, Joe Pitkin, Ned Beauman, Eleanor Arnason, Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Ty Franck, Madeline Ashby, John O’Neill, Vaughne Lee Hansen, Mark Watson, Katherine Canfield, Jamie Coyne, and special thanks to my own editor, Marc Resnick.
Thanks are also due to the late, lamented Charles N. Brown, and to all his staff, whose magazine Locus [Locus Publications, P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661. $63 in the U.S. for a one-year subscription (twelve issues) via periodical mail; $76 for a one-year (twelve issues) via first class credit card orders (510) 339 9198] was used as an invaluable reference source throughout the Summation; Locus Online (www.locusmag.com), edited by Mark R. Kelly, has also become a key reference source.
summation: 2015
It was another relatively quiet year in the SF publishing world, and indeed in the publishing world in general.
The most interesting story in 2015 was probably a resurgence of the sales of print books. According to Nielsen BookScan, 571 million print books were sold in 2015, 17 million more than the year before. Meanwhile, the formerly explosive sales of e-books slowed a bit, actually falling by 10 percent during the first five months of the year; e-book sales had been once predicted to reach 50 percent to 60 percent of total overall book sales by 2015, but instead e-books accounted for around 20 percent of the market, much the same as they have for a few years now. The long-heralded prediction that e-books will drive print books out of the market and into total extinction doesn’t seem set to come true any time soon. Even the once phenomenal sale of dedicated e-readers like the Kindle and the Nook have slowed dramatically, as many people switched over to reading digital books on their smartphones and tablets instead. According to Forrester Research, 12 million e-readers were sold in the last year, a steep drop from the nearly 20 million sold in 2011. According to a Nielsen survey, the portion of people who read books primarily on e-readers fell to 32 percent in the first quarter of 2015, from 50 percent in 2012.
The resurgence of print sales has been good for independent bookstores, themselves once threatened with extinction first by the big bookstore chains, then by online booksellers such as Amazon, then by the e-book explosion. While sales at some of the big chain stores suffer, independent bookstores have been reopening with success. The American Booksellers Association counted 1,712 member stores in 2,227 locations in 2015, up from 1,410 in 1,660 locations five years ago.
None of this means, of course, that e-books are going to go away. One of the most interesting developments in recent years, in sharp contrast to the predictions that either e-books wouldn’t catch on or that they’d drive print books into extinction, is that we seem to be settling into a pattern where readers buy both e-books and print books, choosing one format or the other to purchase depending on their needs and the circumstances. Indeed, some readers even buy both e-book and print editions of the same title, something that almost nobody saw coming.
The good news is that the increased availability of books, in all formats and through all sales channels—online bookseller, independent bookstore, chain bookstores—means that more people are reading than ever have before, and that the long-bemoaned “fact” that kids aren’t interested in reading anymore (because they have computer games, TV, and movies) just isn’t true; a Pew survey from 2014 showed that 88 percent of Americans under thirty read at least one book in the past year, compared to 79 percent for those over thirty, with younger teens reading the most: 46 percent of those aged sixteen to seventeen reported that they read books (in both print and digital formats) on a daily basis, and 43 percent of those eighteen to nineteen reported reading books daily as well.
I have no access to figures for outside of the United States, but I’m willing to bet that this is a global phenomenon, and that people everywhere are reading more now than they were a decade or two ago—certainly good news for everyone who loves books and reading.
Rather than destroy literacy, as has long been feared, the Internet may actually be helping to save it.
* * *
In other publishing news: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt launched a new SF and fantasy book line, called John Joseph Adams Books, under the editorship of John Joseph Adams. Orbit, an SF and fantasy imprint of Hachette, has announced that it’s doubling its annual output next year to ninety titles. HarperOne, a division of HarperCollins, launched a new digital-first imprint, HarperLegends. Penguin Publishing Group combined Berkley and New American Library into a new division called Berkley Publishing Group; Berkley head Leslie Gelbman is president of the new division, former NAL publisher Kara Walsh has been promoted to senior vice president and publisher, Claire Zion will be vice president and editor-in-chief, and Tom Colgan has been promoted to vice president and editorial director and will oversee the mystery and SF/fantasy editors at Ace and Roc. Susan Allison, longtime editorial director for the Berkley Publishing Group, retired. Julie Crisp left her position as editorial director of Tor UK at Pan Macmillian. Annalee Newitz became editor-in-chief of technology Web site Gizmodo, with Charlie Jane Anders taking over her former position as editor-in-chief of Web site io9. Malcolm Edwards stepped down from his position as deputy CEO and publisher of Orion to become chairman of the Gollancz imprint and consulting publisher for Orion. Jon Wood will take over as publisher of Orion, David Young is retiring as CEO of Orion and deputy CEO of Hatchette UK, and former Little, Brown CEO David Shelley will take over as Orion CEO. Simon Spanton left his position as associate publisher of Gollancz. Don Weisberg is leaving his position as president of Penguin Young Readers Group to become president of Macmillan Publishers U.S.; Jen Loja, senior vice president and associate publisher of Penguin Young Readers Group, will take over his old position.
* * *
After years of precipitous decline in the professional magazine market, 2015 was another moderately stable year. Sales of electronic subscriptions to the magazines are continuing to creep up, as well as sales of individual electronic copies of each issue, and this is making a big difference in profitability.
Asimov’s Science Fiction had a strong year this year, publishing good work by Greg Egan, Aliette de Bodard, Rich Larson, Sam J. Miller, Allen M. Steele, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Indrapramit Das, Nick Wolven, Eugene Fischer, Christopher Rowe, and others; Asimov’s was probably the best place in the genre to find strong novellas this year, publishing four or five of the year’s best. As usual, their SF was considerably stronger than their fantasy, the reverse of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Asimov’s Science Fiction registered a 5.1 percent loss in overall circulation, down to 19,250 from 2014’s 20,282. Subscriptions were 17,052, down slightly from 2014’s 17,987; of that total, 9,479 were print subscriptions, up slightly from 9,347, while 7,573 were digital subscriptions, down from 8,640. Newsstand sales were down to 2,198 copies from 2014’s 2,295. Sell-through rose to 39 percent from 37 percent. Sheila Williams completed her twelfth year as Asimov’s editor.
Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact had good work by Sean McMullen, Joe Pitkin, Bill Johnson, Marissa Lingen, Alec Nevala-Lee, Martin L. Shoemaker, K. J. Zimring, and others. Analog registered a 5.4 percent loss in overall circulation, down to 20,356 from 2014’s 24,709. There were 20,356 subscriptions, down from 2014’s 21,456; of this total, 14,301 were print subscriptions, while 6,040 were digital subscriptions. Newsstand sales were down slightly to 3,019 from 2014’s 3,253. Sell-through dropped to 37 percent from 41 percent. New editor Trevor Quachri completed his second full year as editor. 2015 marked the magazine’s eighty-fifth anniversary, and it published its thousandth issue, making it the longest continually running SF magazine.