A collection spotlighting the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2009 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster.

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• “Erosion,” by Ian Creasey — A man tests the limits of his exo-suit prior to leaving a dying Earth.

• “As Women Fight,” by Sara Genge — A hunter, in a society of body-switchers, has no time to train for a fight to inhabit his wife’s body.

• “A Story, with Beans,” by Steven Gould — The role of religion in a dystopian future plagued with metal-eating bugs is considered.

• “Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance,” by John Kessel — A monk, in the far future, steals the only copy of a set of plays from a repressive regime and uses this loot to free his people.

• “On the Human Plan,” by Jay Lake — A mysterious alien visits a far-future, dying Earth in search of the death of Death.

• “Crimes and Glory,” by Paul McAuley — Set in the Jackaroo sequence, a detective chases a thief to recover alien technology that both aliens and humanity are desperate to recover.

•  “Mongoose” by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear — Set in the Lovecraftian “Boojum” universe, a vermin hunter and his tentacled assistant come on board a space station to hunt toves and raths.

• “Before My Last Breath,” by Robert Reed — A geologist discovers a strange fossil in a coal mine that leads to the discovery of a peculiar graveyard.

• “The Island,” by Peter Watts — A woman on a spaceship must decide whether to place a stargate near an alien society that will ultimately destroy it.

• “This Peaceable Land; or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe,” by Robert Charles Wilson — This is an alternate American Civil War history in which the war was never fought, slavery gradually disappeared, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin was never published.