An unabridged collection showcasing the best science fiction stories and novellas published in 2025 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. • “Low-Tide Salvage” by Matthew Claxton—Rival groups use highly advanced biotech to manipulate their biomes. • “The Robot and the Winding Woods” by Brenda Cooper—Intransigent docents lying low in a shuttered campground are confronted by a government robot. • “In the Tangle of the Sea” by Cécile Cristofari—Amidst a plague and rising seas, a secluded archaeologist’s neatly-ordered life is at risk after rescuing a drowning stranger. • “Barnacle” by Kate Elliott—An elderly combat medic turned nurse bridges the gap between life and death in a highly regimented company town near a drowned city. • “Girls Night Out” by Henry Herz—High school teenage girls fight aliens after watching the movie Alien at the mall. • “Wire Mother” by Isabel J. Kim—A daughter has trouble bonding with the digital mother her father loves. • “Most Things” by Rich Larson—Two gig-workers accept a darkmarket contract to kidnap a quantum biologist. • “Excerpts from The Unauthorized Autobiography of Benjamin Brick” by John P. Murphy—The autobiography of a recently deceased author is written posthumously. • “The Hidden God” by T.R. Napper—As AI evolves, billionaires begin dying in bizarre accidents. • “The Apology Tour” by Nnedi Okorafor—The creator of sentient, personal AIs goes on a public relations tour to repair her reputation. • “We, the Fleet” by Alex T. Singer—Mechanical creatures use machine parts to repair a human, who has crash-landed on their planet. • “Darwin’s Rocket” by Alan Smale—Charles Darwin’s controversial experiments in rocket science raise eyebrows in this alternate history chronicled by one of his sisters. • “The Recovery of Lemuria 7” by Allen M. Steele—The daughter of a tech billionaire aids the recovery of her father’s spacecraft that vanished from the Moon 25 years earlier. • “Missing Helen” by Tia Tashiro—A woman is unnerved by her ex-husband’s engagement to her younger clone. • “Prime Purpose” by Steve Rasnic Tem—An old man and robot grow older together. • “Pandora’s Formula” by Hannah Yang—A couple’s honeymoon in Cozumel is eclipsed by news of the discovery of a simple way to kill all humans that’s accessible to everyone.
