Best Science Fiction of the Year

A remote village is determined to keep their robot teacher from being fired. A poetry-loving AI controls the wastewater treatment facility, but a series of malfunctions are beginning to cause concern. The biggest pop idol of the twenty-second century is trapped on Enceladus, and deeply alone. Latchko can talk to the banned AIs and now that his secret is out things are about to get complicated. A former child soldier is raised by a plant-like species but struggles to understand them. Ice fishing on Europa just keeps turning up rocks and things just got worse … something is changing the world, making it better, but for whom? Short fiction is the heart of science fiction, introducing new voices, experimenting with ideas and technique, and paving the way for the future of the field. Thousands of stories are published every year in the many genre magazines, anthologies, collections, podcasts, and websites, as well as other less common venues. Each year, Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning editor Neil Clarke sifts through the myriad of offerings to select works that represent the best and the brightest, report on the state of the field, and recommend additional stories for further reading. In this volume, covering 2021, you'll find works by Aliette de Bodard, Meg Elison, Rich Larson, Ken Liu, Ray Nayler, Suzanne Palmer, Hannu Rajaniemi, Robert Reed, Karl Schroeder, Vandana Singh, Tade Thompson, and many more.

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.