John Adams: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017

In a sense, I wrote “The Witch of Orion Waste…” from a loving dissatisfaction with all of the aforementioned sources. For centuries we have insisted on punishing, on the one hand, Ladies of Shalott and Elaines of Astolat and girls who would dance in red shoes or ride as knights, or demanding, on the other, bottomless forgiveness and patience from wronged women, in the pattern of Griselda, Penelope, and more recently the second half of Lemonade. However pleasing each individual tale, the body of work as a whole, in constantly retreading these narrative paths, has worn them into a deep labyrinth, whose end remains suffering or death. I have written one way out.

ANDERS, CHARLIE JANE

Reliable People. Web Conjunctions: Conjunctions: 67, Other Aliens online supplement, November

BARNES, STEVEN

Fifty Shades of Grays. Lightspeed (People of Colour Destroy Science Fiction! special issue), June

BIRD, COURTNEY

The Diamond Girl. Fairy Tale Review, 2016

BOSKOVICH, DESIRINA

The Voice in the Cornfield, the World Made Flesh. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October

CASTRO, ADAM-TROY

Four Haunted Houses. Nightmare, September

CELT, ADRIENNE

Big Boss Bitch. ZYZZYVA, Fall

CLARK, P. DJeLi

A Dead Djinn in Cairo. Tor.com, May

Things My Mother Left Me. Fantasy (People of Colour Destroy Fantasy! Special Issue), December

DOCTOROW, CORY

The Adventure of the Extraordinary Rendition. Astro Noise: A Survival Guide for Living Under Total Surveillance, ed. Laura Poitras (Whitney Museum of American Art)

EL-MOHTAR, AMAL

Seasons of Glass and Iron. The Starlit Wood, ed. Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe (Saga)

EVENSON, BRIAN

Click. A Collapse of Horses (Coffee House)

No Matter Which Way We Turned. People Holding…, May

GILMAN, CAROLYN IVES

Touring with the Alien. Clarkesworld, April

GOSS, THEODORA

Red as Blood and White as Bone. Tor.com, May

HALBACH, SHANE

O What Freedom, This Great Steel Cage. Analog, May

HEADLEY, MARIA DAHVANA

See the Unseeable, Know the Unknowable. Lightspeed, September

HICKS, MICAH DEAN

The Carpenter and the Beast of Teeth. Territory, Issue II—Underworlds

HOFFMAN, ADA

The Scrape of Tooth and Bone. GigaNotoSaurus, February

HOFFMAN, ALICE

Love Never Ending. Faerie, Spring

HOPKINSON, NALO

Inselberg. Drowned Worlds, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)

IRVINE, ALEX

Number Nine Moon. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February

JEMISIN, N. K.

Red Dirt Witch. Fantasy (People of Colour Destroy Fantasy! special issue), December

JONES, RACHAEL K.

Charlotte Incorporated. Lightspeed, February

KING, STEPHEN

Cookie Jar. VQR Online, May

KOSMATKA, TED

The Stone War. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June

LARSON, RICH

Carnivores. Strangers Among Us, ed. Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law (Laksa Media Groups)

The Green Man Cometh. Clarkesworld, September

LEE, YOON HA

Foxfire, Foxfire. Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May

LIU, KEN

An Advanced Reader’s Picture Book of Comparative Cognition: The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (Saga)

Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts. Drowned Worlds, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)

The Snow Train. Genius Loci, ed. Jaym Gates (Ragnarok)

LOWACHEE, KARIN

A Good Home. Lightspeed (People of Colour Destroy Science Fiction! special issue), June

MACHADO, CARMEN MARIA

My Body, Herself. Uncanny, September/October

The Old Women Who Were Skinned. Fairy Tale Review, 2016

MALERMAN, JOSH

The Jupiter Drop. You, Human, ed. Michael Bailey (Dark Regions)

MARTINE, ARKADY

All the Colors You Thought Were Kings. Shimmer, May/June

MCGUIRE, SEANAN

And Men Will Mine the Mountain for Our Souls. Unfettered II, ed. Shawn Speakman (Grim Oak)

MILLER, SAM J.

Things with Beards. Clarkesworld, June

MOHANRAJ, MARY ANNE

Webs. Asimov’s Science Fiction, July

NOVIK, NAOMI

Castle Coeurlieu. Unfettered II, ed. Shawn Speakman (Grim Oak)

Spinning Silver. The Starlit Wood, ed. Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe (Saga)

OWOMOYELA, AN

Unauthorized Access. Lightspeed, September

PHETTEPLACE, DOMINICA

Project Extropy. Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November

Spells Are Easy If You Have the Right Psychic Energy. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August

PINSKER, SARAH

Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea. Lightspeed, February

POWER, STEPHEN S.

Fade to Red: Three Interviews About Sebold’s Mars Trilogy. Lightspeed, October

REED, ROBERT

Parables of Infinity. Bridging Infinity, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)

RUSSELL, KAREN

The Bog Girl. The New Yorker, June

RUSTAD, A. MERC

The Gentleman of Chaos. Apex Magazine, August

SAMATAR, SOFIA

The Red Thread. Lightspeed (People of Colour Destroy Science Fiction! special issue), June

The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle. The Starlit Wood, ed. Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe (Saga)

SCHIFF, REBECCA

Rate Me. The Bed Moved (Knopf)

SCHNEYER, KENNETH

Some Pebbles in the Palm. Lightspeed, July

SELLAR, GORD

The Incursus, by Asimov-NN#71. Big Echo, Summer

THOMAS, SHEREE RENEE

Treesong. Alphabet of Embers, ed. Rose Lemberg (Stone Bird)

TOBLER, E. CATHERINE

The Abduction of Europa. Clarkesworld, January

URBANSKI, DEBBIE

The Portal. The Sun, March

The Return. Terraform, September

VAUGHN, CARRIE

That Game We Played During the War. Tor.com, March

WERKHEISER, JAY

One Giant Leap. Strange Horizons, November

WOLVEN, NICK

Passion Summer. Asimov’s Science Fiction, February

WONG, ALYSSA

A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers. Tor.com, March

You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay. Uncanny, May/June

YOACHIM, CAROLINE M.

The Right Place to Start a Family. Humanity 2.0, ed. Alex Shvartsman (Phoenix Pick)

Visit www.hmhco.comto find all of the books in The Best American Series(r).

CHARLES YU, guest editor, is the author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe , Sorry Please Thank You , and Third Class Superhero . He was also a story editor and writer for season one of the HBO series Westworld. He lives in Irvine, California.

JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS, series editor, is the editor of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s John Joseph Adams Books imprint. He is also the Hugo Award-winning editor of more than two dozen anthologies and the magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare .

Copyright (c) 2017 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Introduction copyright (c) 2017 by Charles Yu

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