edited by Allan Kaster

read by Sue Bilich, Tom Dheere, and Vanessa Hart

9 hours - unabridged audiobook

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A collection spotlighting the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2008 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster.

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• “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang — In a world totally unlike Earth where mechanical men use the gas argon as air, replacing their lung tanks daily from an underground well. This story won: the 2009 Hugo Award for best short story; the 2009 British Science Fiction Association Award for best story; and the 2009 Locus Award for the best short story.

• “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner — A boy discovers a ray-gun that affects his life in unanticipated ways, both good and bad. This story won the 2009 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.

• “Turing’s Apples” by Stephen Baxter — Two brothers reluctantly work together to decode an alien signal picked up by a radio telescope on the far side of the moon.

• “Shoggoth’s in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear — In a homeage to H.P. Lovecraft, a black naturalist, just before World War II, investigates the biology of shoggoths (blobs of jelly) on the New England coast. This story was the 2009 Hugo Award winner for best novelette.

• “The Dream of Reason” by Jeffrey Ford — A scientist slowly goes mad trying to prove that the distant stars are made of diamond and that matter is just light slowed down.

• “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson — A woman buys a traveling monkey show that pretty much runs itself as all the monkeys know what they’re doing. This story was the 2009 World Fantasy Award short story winner.

• “The Art of Alchemy” by Ted Kosmatka — A steel company will do what it takes to prevent two scientists from releasing the secret of making carbon nanotubes.

• “The City of the Dead” by Paul McAuley — The town constable in a settlement on a planet in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way befriends a woman who researches dangerous hive rats.

• “Five Thrillers” by Robert Reed — A genetically enhanced psychopathic secret agent battles the “Rebirths” for the survival of the human race.

• “Fixing Hanover” by Jeff VanderMeer — A man reluctantly repairs the remains of a mechanical man that washed up on a beach and may be a link to his enigmatic past.

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REVIEW

"This is an outstanding anthology." - SF Signal

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