edited by Allan Kaster

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An unabridged collection spotlighting the best space adventures, alternate histories, and time travel stories published in 2021 by current and emerging masters of the science fiction genre.

 

• “The Station of the Twelfth” by Chaz Brenchley—A stop along the monorail that loops around Cassini Crater pays tribute to the British heroes of a battle that took place on a Martian moon.

• “Mulberry and Owl” by Aliette de Bodard—In this Xuya story, a rebel on the run from the Dragon Throne pursues the decommissioned conscious ship that once hunted her.

• “Sleep and the Soul” by Greg Egan—In an alternate 19th century America, where humans do not sleep, all forms of unconsciousness are considered equivalent to death.

• “Re: Bubble 476” by A. T. Greenblatt—Time aberrations distort the communications sent between two close friends working in different bubble universes.

• “The Dark Side” by John Kessel—President McKinley’s assassin becomes ever more delirious after taking a ride at the 1901 World’s Fair inspired by H. G. Wells’s The First Men in the Moon.

• “Antonia and the Stranger Who Came to Rancho Los Feliz” by Lisa Morton—A man from an alternate L.A. uses a temporal portal to visit a ranch in a 20th century agrarian Los Angeles, in the nation of Alta California.

• “A Rocket for Dimitrios” by Ray Nayler—After salvaging technology from the wreckage of an alien saucer in 1938, the Americans are racing the Russians to find a second possible crash site in the aftermath of World War II.

• “Dream Atlas” by Michael Swanwick—A scientist discovers a dream continuum that stretches through space and time making it possible to observe the past and future.

• “The Burning Girl” by Carrie Vaughn—People with supernatural powers join William the Conqueror in an attack on the final stronghold of the last Saxon lords of England.

• “A Pall of Moondust” by Nick Wood—A botanist balks at returning to the lunar surface after surviving a freak accident on the Moon.