The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2012

Recommended Reading

Charlie Jane Anders, “Six Months, Three Days” (Tor.com)

M.T. Anderson, “Oracle Engine” (Steampunk!)

Eleanor Arnason, “My Husband Steinn” (Asimov’s, 10-11/11)

Kage Baker, “Attlee and the Long Walk” (Life on Mars)

John Barnes, “The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees” (Engineering Infinity)

Christopher Barzak, “Smoke City” (Asimov’s, 4-5/11)

Stephen Baxter, “The Invasion of Venus” (Engineering Infinity)

Peter S. Beagle, “The Way It Works Out and All” (F&SF, 7-8/11)

Elizabeth Bear, “Dolly” (Asimov’s, 1/11)

Elizabeth Bear, “Gods of the Forge” (TRSF)

M. David Blake, “Absinthe Fish” (Bull Spec)

Aliette de Bodard, “Shipbirth” (Asimov’s, 2/10)

Marie Brennan, “Love, Cayce” (Intergalactic Medicine Show, 4/11)

Damien Broderick, “The Beancounter’s Cat” (Eclipse Four)

Rachel Manija Brown, “Steel Rider” (Steam Powered)

Pat Cadigan, “You Never Know” (Solaris Rising)

Geoffrey W. Cole, “One of the Many Uses of Cedar” (On Spec, Summer/11)

Tina Connolly, “As We Report to Gabriel” (Fantasy, 1/11)

Paul Cornell, “The Copenhagen Interpretation” (Asimov’s, 7/11)

John Crowley, “And Go Like This” (Naked City)

Indrapramit Das, “The Widow and the Xir” (Apex, 7/11)

Eric Del Carlo, “Time, Like Blood, on My Hands” (Redstone, 12/11)

Andy Duncan, “Slow as a Bullet” (Eclipse Four)

Sarah L. Edwards, “By Plucking Her Petals” (Interzone, 1-2/11)

K.M. Ferebee, “Seven Spells to Sever the Heart” (Fantasy, 11/11)

Carolyn Ives Gilman, “The Ice Owl” (F&SF, 10-11/11)

Lisa Goldstein, “Little Vampires” (Realms of Fantasy, 4/11)

Elizabeth Hand, “Near Zennor” (A Book of Horrors)

Colin Harvey, “The Ghost Station” (Albedo 1 #40)

Amanda M. Hayes, “Silvergrass Mirror” (Abyss and Apex, 4Q/11)

Rosamund Hodge, “Apotheosis” (Black Gate, Spring/11)

Dylan Horrocks, “Steam Girl” (Steampunk!)

Alexander Jablokov, “The Day the Wires Came Down” (Asimov’s, 4-5/11)

Alaya Dawn Johnson, “Their Changing Bodies” (Subterranean, Summer/11)

Gwyneth Jones, “The Ki-Anna” (Engineering Infinity)

John Kessel, “Clean” (Asimov’s, 3/11)

Mary Robinette Kowal, “Kiss Me Twice” (Asimov’s, 6/11)

Douglas Lain, Wave of Mutilation (Fantastic Planet Books)

Jay Lake, “The Long Walk Home” (Subterranean, Winter/11)

V.H. Leslie, “Time Keeping” (Black Static, 6-7/11)

David D. Levine, “The Tides of the Heart” (Realms of Fantasy, 6/11)

Kelly Link, “Valley of the Girls” (Subterranean, Summer/11)

Ken Liu, “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” (Panverse Three)

Kristin Livdahl, A Brood of Foxes (Aqueduct)

Ken MacLeod, “The Surface of Least Scattering” (TRSF)

Ken MacLeod, “The Best Science Fiction of the Year Three” (Solaris Rising)

Nick Mamatas, “North Shore Friday” (Asimov’s, 4-5/11)

Ian McDonald, “Digging” (Life on Mars)

Ian McHugh, “Boumee and the Apes” (Analog, 5/11)

Maureen F. McHugh, “After the Apocalypse” (After the Apocalypse)

Sean McMullen, “Enigma” (Analog, 1-2/11)

David Moles, “A Soldier of the City” (Engineering Infinity)

Alec Nevala-Lee, “The Boneless One” (Analog, 11/11)

Peadar Ó Guilín, “Heartless” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 12/15/11)

An Owomoyela, “All That Touches the Air” (Lightspeed)

An Owomoyela, “Frozen Voice” (Clarkesworld)

Suzanne Palmer, “Surf” (Asimov’s, 12/11)

Paul Park, “Mysteries of the Old Quarter” (Ghosts by Gaslight)

K.J. Parker, Blue and Gold (Subterranean Press)

Richard Parks, “The Ghost of Shinoda Forest” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

Richard Parks, “The Swan Troika” (Realms of Fantasy, 2/11)

David Prill, “A Pulp Called Joe” (Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2)

Tom Purdom, “A Response from EST17” (Asimov’s, 4-5/11)

Cat Rambo, “The Immortality Game” (Fantasy, 6/11)

Robert Reed, “Purple” (Asimov’s, 3/11)

Robert Reed, “The Ants of Flanders” (F&SF, 7-8/11)

Robert Reed, “Stalker” (Asimov’s, 9/11)

Alastair Reynolds, “The Old Man and the Martian Sea” (Life on Mars)

M. Rickert, “The Corpse Painter’s Masterpiece” (F&SF, 7-8/11)

Kate Riedel, “The Guardians” (On Spec, Spring/11)

Mercurio D. Rivera, “For Love’s Delirium Haunts the Fractured Mind” (Interzone, 7-8/11)

Tansy Rayner Roberts, “The Patrician” (Love and Romanpunk)

Christopher Rowe, “Nowhere Fast” (Steampunk!)

Geoff Ryman, “What We Found” (F&SF, 9-10/11)

Grace Seybold, “Linking Words” (Chiaroscuro, 7/11)

Carter Scholz, “Signs of Life” (F&SF, 5-6/11)

Michael Swanwick, “For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I’ll Not Get Up Again” (Asimov’s, 4/11)

Michael Swanwick, “The Dala Horse” (Tor.com, 7/11)

Sonya Taaffe, “A Wolf in Iceland in the Child of a Lie” (Not One of Us, 4/11)

Lavie Tidhar, “Red Dawn” (Fantasy, 11/11)

Lavie Tidhar, “The Projected Girl” (Naked City)

Lavie Tidhar, Jesus and the Eightfold Path (PS Publishing)

Catherynne M. Valente, “The Bread We Eat in Dreams” (Apex, 11/11)

Catherynne M. Valente, Silently and Very Fast (WSFA Press, Clarkesworld Magazine)

Genevieve Valentine, “Demons, Your Body, and You” (Subterranean)

Genevieve Valentine, “Things to Know About Being Dead” (Teeth)

Kali Wallace, “Botanical Exercises for Curious Girls” (F&SF, 3-4/11)

Jo Walton, “The Panda Coin” (Eclipse Four)

Peter Watts, “Malak” (Engineering Infinity)

Sarah Harris Wallman, “The Malanesian” (LCRW, 8/11)

Kathryn Weaver, “The Doves of Hartleigh Gardens” (Apex, 6/11)

Liz Williams and Alastair Reynolds, “Lune and the Red Empress”(Eastercon Souvenir Book)