Return to 2016 Best SF/F Short Fiction
Best Stories
Novella
Novelette
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Everyone
from Themis Sends Letters Home by Genevieve Valentine
Time: 30m (Novelette) Issue: Clarkesworld 121
(SF) The crew of the Themis colony write
home about their struggles with a mission and a world that seems to be more
than a little off.
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(Military Fantasy) Baekdo, a fox who
wants to become human, needs one more kill to achieve his goal. A collapsing
city in the middle of a civil war seems like a good place to do it but there are
complications.
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(Competence SF) In the 2080s, Humanity
is abandoning Mars, and Steuby and his companions think they can make money
by looting the abandoned settlements at the last minute.
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(Historical Fantasy) In Eastern Europe
between the wars, Klara works as a kitchen maid. One night she admits a woman
she thinks is a lost fairy-tale princesses into the castle.
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(Fairy Tale) Young Miryem supports her
family lending money at interest, but things get difficult when someone from
Faerie makes her an offer she can’t refuse.
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(SF/Mainstream) The crew of the new
Mars mission are coming to the hotel where Emily works, and her mom is
starting to say strange things about her involvement with the last Mars
mission.
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Mini-Review [3] Recommended By: GDozois+2 RHorton+1 JStrahan+2 Hugo+2 Locus+2 Sturgeon+2
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(Post Apocalypse) Teenage Tetley lives
in a human settlement (one of the last) built on a miles-wide floating
garbage dump. She explains why everyone hates her now.
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Mini-Review [4] Recommended By: RSR+1 RHorton+1 JStrahan+2 Locus+2 Sturgeon+2
BASFF+2
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(Steampunk) In 1880s London, Sir
Arthur's "Illogic Engine" has gone missing, so he seeks help from
Mycroft Holmes.
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(Near-Future Hard SF) Lita learned
Rob's obsession with alternate universes in college, but waning interest in
science made it hard for him to explore it.
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Mini-Review [5] Recommended By: RSR+2 SFRevu+1 GDozois+2 RHorton+2 NClarke+2 JStrahan+2 Locus+2 Sturgeon+2
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(Near-Future SF) The secretive
parthenogenetic women of Colinas Bravas usually don't allow outsiders into
their country, but they invite Ms. Vargas to fix a genetic problem with their
children.
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(SF) Months after mysterious aliens
scattered their spacecraft across North America, no one has a clue what they
want. Avery knows what one of them wants, though: it wants a tour.
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RSR
Mini-Review [4] Recommended By: RSR+1 GDozois+2 RHorton+1 NClarke+2 JStrahan+2 Hugo+2 Sturgeon+2
BASFF+1
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(Historical Fantasy) In a magical Old
West, young Ellis has a love for the desert and an affinity for dead things.
Both of these attract unwelcome attention from strangers visiting from back
East.
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Reviews
RSR
Mini-Review [4] Recommended By: RSR+1 JStrahan+2 Nebula+2 Readers+0 Hugo+2 Eugie+2 Locus+2 BASFF+1
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Short Story
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(Space Opera; Xuya) Thuy seeks her
daughter's remains in the twisted parts of unreal space where salvagers pick
over the remains of wrecked starships.
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(Near-Future SF) A refugee from a
drowned island nation works on the Antarctic peninsula, where he studies
mysterious stones with elven runes in his spare time.
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(Drug SF) In the middle of
preparations for Tindal’s roommate’s funeral, two teenagers show up and start
eating the psychotropic drugs off the wall.
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(Slipstream Metafiction) Once upon a
time a man’s therapist asked him to write a story about himself, his family,
and the strange world he lived in, with its dragons and lawyers, witches and
doctors, and the darkness closing in.
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(High Fantasy) To defeat the armies of
the Efficate, the Cteri train some of their children to be weapons of mass
destruction.
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(SF) A police detective tries to cope
with an attractive female robot who confesses to murder.
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(Black Historical Fantasy) In the
closing years of segregation, Emmaline uses her magic to help neighbors and
protect her children, for trouble is coming.
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(Fairy Tale) Tabitha has been walking
a long time, trying to wear out seven pairs of iron shoes; Amira has been
sitting alone on a glass hill that suitors try to climb.
Other
Reviews
RSR
Mini-Review [4] Recommended By: RSR+1 JStrahan+2 Nebula+2 Hugo+2 Eugie+2 Locus+2 Sturgeon+2
BASFF+1
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(Far Future SF) Mia marks her
birthdays as powers of 7, which gives her lots of time to work out her issues
with her mother.
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(Horror) Four friends meet for a
writer’s critique group, on a stormy night when a dangerous beast is on the
loose outside.
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(Planetary SF) A vast fleet of
"jalopies" carry individuals on a one-way trip from Earth to Mars.
People do it for different reasons, some of which we learn about in this
story.
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Reviews
RSR
Mini-Review [2] Recommended By: GDozois+2 RHorton+1 NClarke+2 JStrahan+2 CPayseur+2
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(Fairy Tale) A young, newly minted
witch meets an equally green knight, and they go off together in search of
dragons.
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(Horror) Following a disaster in
Antarctica, MacReady spends summer 1983 in New York and starts to wonder what
he might have brought back with him.
Other
Reviews
RSR
Mini-Review [3] Recommended By: SFRevu+1 GDozois+2 RHorton+2 NClarke+2 JStrahan+2 CPayseur+2
Nebula+2 Sturgeon+2
BASFF+1
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(High Fantasy Humor) A warrior woman
and a thief fleeing from the south meet a male warrior fleeing from the north
in the middle of a bridge. Then it gets complicated.
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Whisper Road (Murder Ballad No. 9) by Caitlín R. Kiernan Time: 00m (ShortStory) Issue: Sirenia Digest 125
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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(SF Thriller) The narrator is a con
man in near-future Thailand, and he has a scheme that might net him enough to
retire.
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Best Stories 2
Novella
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(Fantasy/SF) Young Aqib has a bright
future as a noble, but he meets an enchanting foreigner who makes him
consider risking everything.
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(Portal Fiction; Wayward Children)
Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children helps kids who passed through a
portal to another world and returned unable to cope with this one.
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(Black Lovecraftian Horror) In 1924
Harlem, 20-year-old Tommy Tester plays bad jazz and runs minor scams. When an
old man offers him $500 to play at his house, he knows there's a catch. It's
just not what he expects.
Other
Reviews
RSR
Mini-Review [4] Recommended By: RSR+1 RHorton+2 JStrahan+2 Nebula+2 Hugo+2 Locus+2 Sturgeon+2
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(Fantasy) The philosopher Saloninus
makes a deal with the Devil. Except he approaches the Devil, not the other
way around, and the Devil is worried it's a trick.
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(Fantasy) Vellitt Boe teaches math at
a university in the dreamworld. When her star student elopes with a dreamer
from the real world, she goes after them.
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(Military SF) Merlin's starship is one
of the best, but it needs repairs, and a derelict starship may have what he
needs. Or he can try a binary system where an interplanetary war has raged
for centuries.
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(Alternate History) In 1950s London
after the Nazi's won WWII, a German man tries to find a girl he used to love
in response to her call for help.
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(Post-Apocalypse) At age seven, the
narrator thought he saw his father murder his mother. But did he?
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Novelette
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(SF) In a colony on an almost
uninhabitable planet, the technologically-superior Su share power with the
humans, but some humans want independence.
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