With the availability of worldwide cheap teleportation, you're effectively living next door to your parents for your entire life. Likewise all your ex-girlfriends, and all the people who you owe mon... more »

Maybe the moo-shu pork was in the back of the refrigerator for too long? Or maybe it is every programmer's just revenge. You decide.

An intelligent dog serves happily as a subordinate crew member on a spaceship, until they confront intelligent dogs who defy the rules governing animal-human relations.

A spaceship that should have taken a first contact team to a new world has ended up trapped at the event horizon of a black hole. Only four people from the original crew remain alive: Justin Morrel,... more »

Could a little girl raised inside her own mind be the cause of civilization's collapse--or its salvation? A post-apocalyptic story of physical and virtual realities. [Honorable Mention: The Year's B... more »

The mountains of Argentina, where layers of fossil footprints lay bare to the eyes of two paleontologists, sets the scene for an exploration of a disaster in the distant past, and one much closer in... more »

On the eve of the Russian Revolution, a young soldier in the city hears a poor prostitute's story and through it encounters a horror from the countryside that threatens to destroy them both. <... more »

Hugo nominated "The Bones of the Earth" is a tale of the relationship between apprentice and teacher, and of ultimate sacrifice. Set in Le Guin's beloved Earthsea universe. In the story, a profound ... more »

Kristine Kathryn Rusch's first published story has been anthologized numerous times. Cullaene is an alien who is accused of murder when all he's trying to do is survive on his home planet--a planet ... more »

In Light Play, Dr. Caroline Denaro's experiments with plant and animal genes had lethal consequences. Some of the gene sequences she transferred contained a virus. First, her rats, and then Denaro h... more »

Welcome to the beautiful city of Salzburg. Not long ago an unexplained device sent to the present from the future caused an explosion that ripped open a wound in time and space, and allowed a brief ... more »

Conflicting accounts of what happened after a dying man constructed a mathematical technique of communication from beyond the grave.

A slightly psi-gifted young man in a dead-end job tries his hand at investigating a horrific past crime. [Selected for Karl Edward Wagner's The Year's Best Horror Stories XVIII.]

Looking to purchase your very own planet with all the continents in place and utilities included? Bothered by gargantuan pests? Under attack by vast military forces? Check out these classifieds to s... more »

The humans from Earth and their multiton jelly-blob alien friends, the "flouwen" from the ocean-covered lobe of the double-planet Rocheworld, fly to the desert-dry lobe of Rocheworld where they disc... more »

Amanda always expected that when she fell in love, it would be with a musician or an artist--at the very least a human. Then she meets an alien on the run from the FBI and shelters him. [This short ... more »

Jealousy is sometimes called The Green-Eyed Monster, but that's just a turn of phrase. Or is it? When a literary agent's clients become so envious of each other's that they're ready to rend him limb... more »

Commander Shmeegl returns to his home planet to tell the king of his expedition to a planet on which he has discovered intelligent life. Unfortunately, the best example of intelligence he found ther... more »

Paul is a theoretical physicist who has made a grim discovery. His wife Betsy has tried to help him bear the crushing weight of it for years but now even her love may not be enough to save him from ... more »

The human explorers of the Barnard Star system and their large, friendly, amoebae-like alien friends, the "flouwen," explore an Europa-like moon about the gas-giant Gargantua. They find two bizarre ... more »

Localizers, digital money, keyless doors, global databases--Bill lived in a world of modern conveniences, designed to liberate him. But all Bill wanted to do was disappear, and technology stood in h... more »

The maturation of an individual usually comes at a price, and that price is usually the sacrifice of some precious belonging. The maturation of society, of an entire race would be no different. But ... more »

How many authors have wanted to kill their publishers after receiving a shockingly low royalty statement? When freelance writer Sidney Midney gets one, it sends him over the brink to homicidal madne... more »

An alien Christmas tale.

On an alien planet, in uncharted territory, the vegetation has properties that have unforeseen consequences for the exploration team and the rest of humanity.