The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 1

RECOMMENDED READING: 2019

The following stories were published during 2019 and are highly recommended for anyone wanting to read even more great short fiction.

“A Strange Uncertain Light,” G. V. Anderson (F&SF, 7-8/19)

“Life Sentence,” Matthew Baker (Lightspeed, 2/19)

“Fugue State,” Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due (Apex 120)

“A Time to Reap,” Elizabeth Bear (Uncanny, 12/19)

“Erase, Erase, Erase,” Elizabeth Bear (F&SF, 9-10/19)

“No Moon and Flat Calm,” Elizabeth Bear (Slate: Future Tense, 5/29/19)

Longer, Michael Blumlein (Tor.com)

“A Bird, A Song, A Revolution,” Brooke Bolander (Lightspeed, 9/19)

“Who Should Live in Flooded Old New York?” Brooke Bolander (New York Times, 7/1/19)

“The Migration Suite: A Study in C Sharp Minor,” Maurice Broaddus (Uncanny, 7-8/19)

“While Dragons Claim the Sky,” Jen Brown (Fiyah, Spring ’19)

“By the Warmth of Their Calculus,” Tobias S. Buckell (Mission Critical)

“For He Can Creep,” Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com, 7/10/19)

“The Airwalker Comes to the City in Green,” Siobhan Carroll (Asimov’s, 11-12/19)

“Our Banished World,” Kim Changgyu (Readymade Bodhisattva)

“Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom,” Ted Chiang (Exhalation)

“Omphalos,” Ted Chiang (Exhalation)

“Beyond the El,” John Chu (Tor.com, 1/16/19)

“Probabilitea,” John Chu (Uncanny #28)

“To Catch All Sorts of Flying Things,” M. L. Clark (Clarkesworld, 9/19)

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com)

“miscellaneous notes from the time an alien came to band camp disguised as my alto sax,” Tina Connolly (F&SF, 3-4/19)

Desdemona and the Deep, C. S. E. Cooney (Tor.com)

“Anosognosia,” John Crowley (And Go Like This)

“A Shade of Dusk,” Indrapramit Das (Echoes)

“The Shadow We Cast Through Time,” Indrapramit Das (New Suns)

“The Song Between Worlds,” Indrapramit Das (Slate: Future Tense, 4/27/19)

“Rescue Party,” Aliette de Bodard (Mission Critical)

“Of Birthdays, and Fungus, and Kindness,” Aliette de Bodard (Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight)

“Radicalized,” Cory Doctorow (Radicalized)

“Unauthorized Bread,” Cory Doctorow (Radicalized)

Miranda in Milan, Katharine Duckett (Tor.com)

“Love in the Time of Immuno-Sharing,” Andy Dudak (Analog, 1-2/19)

“Charlie Tells Another One,” Andy Duncan (Asimov’s, 9-10/19)

“Instantiation,” Greg Egan (Asimov’s, 3-4/19)

“Zeitgeber,” Greg Egan (Tor.com, 9/19)

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga)

“Hanging Gardens,” Gregory Feeley (Mission Critical)

“Sisyphus in Elysium,” Jeffrey Ford (The Mythic Dream)

“The Boy on the Roof,” Francesca Forrest (Fireside, 11/19)

“Wild to Covet,” Sarah Gailey (The Mythic Dream)

“The Sun from Both Sides,” R. S. A. Garcia (Clarkesworld, 5/19)

“On the Shores of Ligeia,” Carolyn Ives Gilman (Lightspeed, 3/19)

“Something in the Air,” Carolyn Ives Gilman (Mission Critical)

“A Country Called Winter,” Theodora Goss (Snow White Learns Witchcraft)

“Give the Family My Love,” A. T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld, 2/19)

“Do Not Look Back, My Lion,” Alix E. Harrow (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #270)

Alice Payne Rides, Kate Heartfield (Tor.com)

“Repatriation,” Nalo Hopkinson (Current Futures)

The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, Saad Z. Hossain (Tor.com)

Nomads, Dave Hutchinson (NewCon)

“How Sere Looked for a Pair of Boots,” Alexander Jablokov (Asimov’s, 1-2/19)

“Skinner Box,” Carole Johnstone (Tor.com, 6/12/19)

Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water, Vylar Kaftan (Tor.com)

“Between Zero and One,” Bo-Young Kim (Readymade Bodhisattva)

“How Alike Are We,” Bo-Young Kim (Clarkesworld, 10/19)

“Nice Things,” Ellen Klages (Uncanny, 5-6/19)

The Ghosts of Ganymede, Derek Künsken (Clarkesworld, 1/19)

“The Justified,” Ann Leckie (The Mythic Dream)

“Glass Cannon,” Yoon Ha Lee (Hexarchate Stories)

“The Empty Gun,” Yoon Ha Lee (Mission Critical)

“The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear,” Kelly Link (Tin House, Summer ’19)

“Moonlight,” Cixin Liu (Broken Stars)

“Haven,” Karen Lord (Current Futures)

“Fare,” Danny Lore (Fireside, 8/1/19)

“As Dark as Hunger,” S. Qiouyi Lu (Black Static #72)

“The Things Eric Eats Before He Eats Himself,” Carmen Maria Machado (The Mythic Dream)

“Labbatu Takes Command of the Flagship Heaven Dwells Within,” Arkady Martine (The Mythic Dream)

The Menace from Farside, Ian McDonald (Tor.com)

“Phantoms of the Midway,” Seanan McGuire (The Mythic Dream)

“Under the Hill,” Maureen McHugh (F&SF, 9-10/19)

“It Was Saturday Night, I Guess That Makes It All Right,” Sam J. Miller (A People’s Future of the United States)

“Shattered Sidewalks of the Human Heart,” Sam J. Miller (Clarkesworld, 7/19)

“Shucked,” Sam J. Miller (F&SF, 11-12/19)

“Adrianna in Pomegranate,” Samantha Mills (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #271)

“His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light,” Mimi Mondal (Tor.com, 1/23/19)

“A Forest, or a Tree,” Tegan Moore (Tor.com, 6/26/19)

“On the Lonely Shore,” Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Uncanny, 3-4/19)

“Devil in the Dust,” Linda Nagata (Mission Critical)

“The Death of Fire Station 10,” Ray Nayler (Lightspeed, 10/19)

“The Ocean Between the Leaves,” Ray Nayler (Asimov’s, 7-8/19)

“Old Media,” Annalee Newitz (Tor.com, 2/19)

“Beyond Comprehensions,” Russell Nichols (Fireside, 1/19)

“Dislocation Space,” Garth Nix (Tor.com, 12/11/19)

“Tiny Bravery,” Ada Nnadi (Omenana, 11/19)

“Binti: Sacred Fire,” Nnedi Okorafor (Binti: The Complete Trilogy)

“Dave’s Head,” Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld, 9/19)

“Waterlines,” Suzanne Palmer (Asimov’s, 7-8/19)

“More Real Than Him,” Silvia Park (Tor.com, 8/5/19)

My Beautiful Life, K. J. Parker (Subterranean)

“The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye,” Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny, 7-8/19)

“The Narwhal,” Sarah Pinsker (Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea)

“In This Moment, We Are Happy,” Chen Qiufan (Clarkesworld, 8/19)

“Space Leek,” Chen Qiufan (Slate: Future Tense, 6/29/19)

“Whom My Soul Loves,” Rivqa Rafael (Strange Horizons, 11/19)

“And Now His Lordship Is Laughing,” Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons, 9/9/19)

Sisters of the Vast Black, Lina Rather (Tor.com)

Permafrost, Alastair Reynolds (Tor.com)

“Learning Report,” Sofia Rhei (Everything Is Made of Letters)

“A Brief Lesson in Native American Astronomy,” Rebecca Roanhorse (The Mythic Dream)

The Man Who Would Be Kling, Adam Roberts (NewCon)

“Ice Breakers,” Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Mission Critical)

“The Gondoliers,” Karen Russell (Tin House, Summer ’19)

“In That Place She Grows a Garden,” Del Sandeen (Fiyah, Spring ’19)

“Advice for Your First Time at the Faerie Market,” Nibedita Sen (Fireside, 7/19)

Ormeshadow, Priya Sharma (Tor.com)

“Mother Ocean,” Vandana Singh (Current Futures)

“The Wilderling,” Angela Slatter (The Dark #48)

“The Burning Woods,” Michael Marshall Smith (I Am the Abyss)

“Blood Is Another Word for Hunger,” Rivers Solomon (Tor.com, 7/24/19)

The Deep, Rivers Solomon (Saga)

“Some Kind of Blood-Soaked Future,” Carlie St. George (Nightmare #85, 10/19)

“You Were Once Wild Here,” Carlie St. George (The Dark 12/19)

“Every Song Must End,” Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (Uncanny #27)

Silver in the Wood, Emily Tesh (Tor.com)

The Survival of Molly Southbourne, Tade Thompson (Tor.com)

“In Xanadu,” Lavie Tidhar (Tor.com, 11/6/19)

“New Atlantis,” Lavie Tidhar (F&SF, 5-6/19)

“Who Will Clean Our Spirits When We’re Gone?” Tlotlo Tsamaase (The Dark #50)

“Gremlin,” Carrie Vaughn (Asimov’s, 5-6/19)

“My Snakes,” Frieda Vaughn (Fiyah, Spring ’19)

“Boiled Bones and Black Eggs,” Nghi Vo (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #275)

Into Bones Like Oil, Kaaron Warren (Meerkat)

“The Crafter at the Web’s Heart,” Izzy Wasserstein (Apex 117)

The Ascent to Godhood, JY Yang (Tor.com)

“Windrose in Scarlet,” Isabel Yap (Lightspeed, 10/19)

“The Time Invariance of Snow,” E. Lily Yu (Tor.com, 4/14/19)

“Valley of Wounded Deer,” E. Lily Yu (Lightspeed, 10/19)

“Zero in Babel,” E. Lily Yu (Slate: Future Tense, 7/27/19)