Marie Vibbert

Ki is a petty thief. Her best friend wills her his solo-flyer-call it a space motorcycle: temperamental, fast as hell, and expensive to maintain. Any reasonable person would sell it to get off the street, but Ki isn't reasonable.Margot is a military vet at loose ends. She blows her entire back pay on a solo-flyer, adecision she instantly regrets but can't bring herself to undo. Margot meets Ki and thinks she's the sympathetic friend she needs when she feels most alone. Ki thinks Margot is an easy markfor food money. They're both right, but lunch leads to a joy ride to planet Ratana, whereMargot is arrested by border control.Ki enlists Ratanese local Zuleikah, a bored rich girl who can think of no stupider, and therefore better, way to spend her time than busting someone out of jail. Together they rescue Margot, but find themselves trapped on a hostile planet on the cusp of civil war.When Zuleikah convinces them that their best bet for escape is to kidnap-er, rescue-Prince Thane from his dreary role in the crumbling monarchy, it results in a chase across the desert and into the farthest reaches of the universe. If they can learn to trust each other, and if the repo men, cops, and three different galactic governments don't catch them, the Galactic Hellcats might just use their solo-fliers to carve a place for themselves among the stars.

Galactic Hellcats

Annalee Newitz

Tobias S. Buckell

Leonard Richardson

Alastair Reynolds

Sarah Gailey

Premee Mohamed

Rich Larson

Neil Clarke

Greg Egan

Julianna Baggott

Yoon Ha Lee

Suzanne Palmer

Meg Elison

Naomi Kritzer

A.T. Greenblatt

Nian Yu

Chinelo Onwualu

Wole Talabi

Grace Chan

S.L. Huang

M. Bennardo

Jessica Reisman

Ray Nayler

R.S.A. Garcia

Ai Jiang

Hannah Yang

Isabel J. Kim

Congyun "Mu Ming" Gu

J.C. Hsyu

For decades, science fiction has compelled us to imagine futures both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it's a cryptic message encountered by a survey ship, the discovery of alien life in the distant reaches of space, a window into a future Earth, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction inspires our imagination and delivers a lens through which we can view ourselves and the world around us. At the very heart of the genre is short fiction, the secret lab that has introduced many of the new ideas, techniques, and voices prominent across all other media. In The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Eight, Hugo and Locus Award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a comprehensive year-in-review of 2022's short fiction markets and selects thirty-one of its best stories from the wealth of magazines, anthologies, podcasts, and collections that make up the field. In these pages you'll find works by both the new and established authors who are setting the pace for science fiction today and into tomorrow. Start your journey here.

The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 8

Mur Lafferty

Jamie Mason

Natania Barron

Holly Schofield

Patrice Sarath

Melanie A. Marotta

Julie C. Day

Jennifer Brozek

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

Wendy Wagner

Karen Bovenmyer

Katie Cord

Caroline Cormack

E. N. Auslender

Monica Joyce Evans

Future Crime Stories

The Way of the Laser

Alison Wilgus

Gustavo Bondoni

M. Darusha Wehm

Thomas Webb

Langley Hyde

Katrina Archer

F. J. Bergmann

Wendy S. Delmater

Salvatore Difalco

Anthony W. Eichenlaub

Eric S. Fomley

John Cooper Hamilton

Charlotte H. Lee

Dennis Mombauer

Melanie Rees

D. A. Xiaolin Spires

Melissa Yuan-Innes

Little Blue Marble magazine's year in stories: flash fiction, microfiction, and more! Tales of our changing world by these authors from around the globe: F. J. Bergmann, Gustavo Bondoni, Wendy S. Delmater, Salvatore Difalco, Anthony W. Eichenlaub, Eric S. Fomley, John Cooper Hamilton, Langley Hyde, Charlotte H. Lee, Dennis Mombauer, Melanie Rees, Holly Schofield, D. A. Xiaolin Spires, Marie Vibbert, Thomas Webb, M. Darusha Wehm, Alison Wilgus, Melissa Yuan-Innes From rising tides to edible homes, weather control and tornado killers, floating city-states and plant-based humans, Little Blue Marble 2018 brings you poignant, sometimes hopeful but often biting visions of our futures living with climate change.

Little Blue Marble 2018

Marie Vibbert

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