The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six (Night Shade, January 25, 2022). Cover by Pascal Blanché

It’s here at last! The sixth volume of Neil Clarke’s Best Science Fiction of the Year, long-delayed by supply chain disruptions, pandemic publishing panic, and maybe Pacific pirates — I honestly have no idea. But it’s here. And packed full of stories from the long-ago era of 2020, when the pandemic was fresh and new, everyone was ordering their first masks, and looking forward to returning to work in two weeks. Ah, the good old days.

I’m glad to finally have this book in my hot little hands, anyway. Even if it did take so long to arrive that I ended up accidently ordering a second copy from the Science Fiction Book Club six months after I ordered the first one. If anyone out there is in the market for a copy, we should talk.

As usual, the sixth volume of Neil’s Best SF of the Year is filled to the brim with writers at the top of their game, including Sofia Samatar, Nancy Kress, James Patrick Kelly, Maureen McHugh, Carrie Vaughn, Rich Larson, Aliette de Bodard, Andy Dudak, James S. A. Corey, M. Rickert, Vajra Chandrasekera, Usman T. Malik, Peter Watts, Eleanor Arnason, Ken Liu, Matthew Kressel, S.B. Divya, Nancy Kress, Carolyn Ives Gilman, and many others.

Here’s the complete table of contents.

“Scar Tissue” by Tobias S. Buckell (Future Tense Fiction, May 30, 2020)
“Eyes of the Forest” by Ray Nayler (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2020)
“Sinew and Steel and What They Told” by Carrie Vaughn (Tor.com, February 26, 2020)
“An Important Failure” by Rebecca Campbell (Clarkesworld Magazine, August 2020)
“The Long Iapetan Night” by Julie Novakova (Asimov’s Science Fiction, November/December 2020)
“AirBody” by Sameem Siddiqui (Clarkesworld Magazine, April 2020)
“The Bahrain Underground Bazaar” by Nadia Afifi (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December 2020)
“Lone Puppeteer of a Sleeping City” by Arula Ratnakar (Clarkesworld Magazine, September 2020)
“Your Boyfriend Experience” by James Patrick Kelly (Entanglements: Tomorrow’s Lovers, Families, and Friends, edited by Sheila Williams)
“Beyond the Tattered Veil of Stars” by Mercurio D. Rivera (Asimov’s Science Fiction, March/April 2020)
“The 1st Interspecies Solidarity Fair and Parade” by Bogi Takács (Rebuilding Tomorrow, edited by Tsana Dolichva)
“Oannes, From The Flood” by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Avatars, Inc., edited by Ann VanderMeer)
“Yellow and the Perception of Reality” by Maureen McHugh (Tor.com, July 22, 2020)
“Exile’s End” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (Tor.com, August 12, 2020)
“Invisible People” by Nancy Kress (Entanglements: Tomorrow’s Lovers, Families, and Friends, edited by Sheila Williams)
“Red_Bati” by Dilman Dila (Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora, edited by Zelda Knight and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki)
“Textbooks in the Attic” by S.B. Divya (Rebuilding Tomorrow, edited by Tsana Dolichva)
“Seeding the Mountain” by M. L. Clark (Analog Science Fiction & Fact, September/October 2020)
“Knock Knock Said the Ship” by Rati Mehrotra (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2020)
“Still You Linger, Like Soot in the Air” by Matthew Kressel (Lightspeed Magazine, August 2020)
“Tunnels” by Eleanor Arnason (Asimov’s Science Fiction, May/June 2020)
“Test 4 Echo” by Peter Watts (Made to Order, edited by Jonathan Strahan)
“Uma” by Ken Liu (Avatars, Inc., edited by Ann VanderMeer)
“Beyond These Stars Other Tribulations of Love” by Usman T. Malik (Wired, December 11, 2020)
“The Translator, at Low Tide” by Vajra Chandrasekera (Clarkesworld Magazine, May 2020)
“Fairy Tales for Robots” by Sofia Samatar (Made to Order, edited by Jonathan Strahan)
“This World is Made for Monsters” by M. Rickert (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October 2020)
“Elsewhere” by James S. A. Corey (Avatars, Inc., edited by Ann VanderMeer)
“Salvage” by Andy Dudak (Interzone, January/February 2020)
“The Long Tail” by Aliette de Bodard (Wired, November 30, 2020)
“Rhizome, by Starlight” by Fran Wilde (Rebuilding Tomorrow, edited by Tsana Dolichva)
“How Quini the Squid Misplaced His Klobučar” by Rich Larson (Tor.com, January 15, 2020)

The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six was published by Night Shade Books on January 25, 2022. It is 620 pages, priced at $34.99 in hardcover, and $19.99 in paperback and digital formats. The cover is by Pascal Blanché.

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