Кейт Эллиот: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021

Edited and with an Introduction

by Veronica Roth

John Joseph Adams, Series Editor

Copyright © 2021 by HarperCollins Publishers LLC

Introduction copyright © 2021 by Veronica Roth

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ISSN 2573-0797 (print) ISSN 2573-0800 (e-book)

ISBN 978-0-358-46996-4 (print) ISBN 978-0-358-47007-6 (e-book)

ISBN 978-0-358-57839-0 (audiobook) ISBN 978-0-358-57880-2 (cd)

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Cover image © Wacomka / Getty

Roth photograph © Nelson Fitch

“Let’s Play Dead” by Senaa Ahmad. First published in The Paris Review, Spring 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Senaa Ahmad. Reprinted by permission of Senaa Ahmad.

“Glass Bottle Dancer” by Celeste Rita Baker. First published in Lightspeed, Issue 119. Copyright © 2020 by Celeste Rita Baker. Reprinted by permission of Celeste Rita Baker.

“Tiger’s Feast” by KT Bryski. First published in Nightmare, Issue 98. Copyright © 2020 by KT Bryski. Reprinted by permission of Katie Bryski.

“Our Language” by Yohanca Delgado. First published in A Public Space , Issue 29. Copyright © 2020 by Yohanca Delgado. Reprinted by permission of Yohanca Delgado.

“The Rat” by Yohanca Delgado. First published in One Story, October 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Yohanca Delgado. Reprinted by permission of Yohanca Delgado.

“Schrödinger’s Catastrophe” by Gene Doucette. First published in Lightspeed, Issue 126. Copyright © 2020 by Gene Doucette. Reprinted by permission of Gene Doucette.

“The Pill” by Meg Elison. First published in Big Girl. Copyright © 2020 by Meg Elison. Reprinted by permission of Meg Elison.

“The Long Walk” by Kate Elliott. First published in The Book of Dragons , edited by Jonathan Strahan, published by HarperCollins. Copyright © 2020 by Katrina Elliott. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“One Time, a Reluctant Traveler” by A. T. Greenblatt. First published in Clarkes­world, Issue 166, July 2020. Copyright © 2020 by A. T. Greenblatt. Reprinted by permission of A. T. Greenblatt.

“Brother Rifle” by Daryl Gregory. First published in Made to Order: Robots and Revolution. Copyright © 2020 by Daryl Gregory. Reprinted by permission of Daryl Gregory.

“And This Is How to Stay Alive” by Shingai Njeri Kagunda. First published in Fantasy , Issue 61. Copyright © 2020 by Shingai Njeri Kagunda. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Crawfather” by Mel Kassel. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Melanie Kassel. Reprinted by permission of Melanie Kassel.

“The Beast Adjoins” by Ted Kosmatka. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July/August 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Ted Kosmatka. Reprinted by permission of Ted Kosmatka.

“Beyond the Dragon’s Gate” by Yoon Ha Lee. First published in Tor.com, May 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Yoon Ha Lee. Reprinted by permission of Yoon Ha Lee.

“The Cleaners” by Ken Liu. First published in The Cleaners (Faraway Collection), Amazon Publishing. Copyright © 2020 by Ken Liu. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Plague Doctors” by Karen Lord. First published in Take Us to a Better Place: Stories. Copyright © 2019 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher. Published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and produced by Melcher Media.

“Survival Guide” by Karin Lowachee. First published in Burn the Ashes. Copyright © 2020 by Karin Lowachee. Reprinted by permission of Karin Lowachee.

“How to Pay Reparations: A Documentary” by Tochi Onyebuchi. First published in Future Tense/Slate Magazine, August 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Tochi Onyebuchi. Reprinted by permission of Tochi Onyebuchi.

“Two Truths and a Lie” by Sarah Pinsker. First published in Tor.com, June 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Sarah Pinsker. Reprinted by permission of Sarah Pinsker.

“Skipping Stones in the Dark” by Amman Sabet. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Amman Sabet. Reprinted by permission of Amman Sabet.

Welcome to year seven of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy ! This volume presents the best science fiction and fantasy (SF/F) short stories published during the 2020 calendar year as selected by myself and guest editor Veronica Roth.

Veronica Roth burst onto the publishing scene in 2011 with her first novel, Divergent, which she famously wrote during her senior year at Northwestern University. That book went on to become a number-one New York Times best seller and a franchise-starting worldwide blockbuster. Divergent spawned two novel sequels— Insurgent and Allegiant —​along with a story collection called Four. Collectively, the books have sold somewhere north of forty million copies worldwide and were adapted into three major motion pictures.

After the Divergent series concluded, Veronica returned with a new young adult duology—​ Carve the Mark and The Fates Divide —​and then followed that up with a short story collection called The End and Other Beginnings.

In 2020, Roth pivoted, making her adult debut with the novel Chosen Ones, which I was fortunate enough to acquire for my imprint at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It received high praise from previous BASFF series editors Diana Gabaldon and Charles Yu, not to mention the likes of Charlie Jane Anders, Blake Crouch, and Amber Benson—​and also received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews and, despite coming out right when the pandemic started locking everything down, hit the New York Times best-seller list. Veronica’s second adult novel is due out in 2022.

Although Veronica began her career as a novelist, she’s also passionate about short fiction. Above, I mentioned her short story collections, but it’s worth noting that outside of those she’s also published stories in anthologies such as Summer Days and Summer Nights, Shards & Ashes, Wastelands: The New Apocalypse, and in the Amazon Original Stories “deconstructed anthology” [1] Amazon Original Stories has been publishing a series of projects over the last several years that they call “collections,” but which I always think of as “deconstructed anthologies.” They’re clearly assembled as anthologies—​and feature short works by multiple authors—​but the stories are all downloadable individually, rather than together as a single book. Since “collection” is typically used to refer to a single-author collection—​a book of short stories that is comprised only of a single author’s work—​it seems imprecise to use that terminology for the Amazon Original Stories publications. I may be the only one who will ever call them deconstructed anthologies, but in my mind that’s clearly what they are.Forward. Plus, in 2020, she also had a new story out called “The Least of These” in Lightspeed.