The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2015 Read online

  THE YEAR’S BEST

  SCIENCE FICTION

  AND FANTASY NOVELLAS

  2015 EDITION

  PAULA GURAN

  Copyright © 2015 by Paula Guran.

  Cover art by Julie Dillon.

  Cover design by Sherin Nicole.

  Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

  All stories are copyrighted to their respective authors, and used here with their permission.

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-464-5 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-455-3 (trade paperback)

  PRIME BOOKS

  Germantown, MD, USA

  www.prime-books.com

  No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

  For more information, contact Prime Books at [email protected].

  CONTENTS

  Introduction by Paula Guran

  Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress

  The Lightning Tree by Patrick Rothfuss

  Dream Houses by Genevieve Valentine

  The Mothers of Voorisville by Mary Rickert

  Claudius Rex by John P. Murphy

  In Her Eyes by Seth Chambers

  The Churn: A Novella of the Expanse by James S. A. Corey

  The Things We Do for Love by K. J. Parker

  Where the Trains Turn by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen

  About the Authors

  Acknowledgements

  INTRODUCTION

  Paula Guran

  Welcome to the inaugural The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novellas . . . which brings us immediately to the rather gnarly question of defining “novella” beyond “a work of fiction longer than a short story but shorter than a novel.”

  In the literary world, some feel a novella is not defined by word count, but its unity of purpose. And George Fetherling was probably correct in stating that comparing one version of prose fiction to another based solely on length is “like insisting that a pony is a baby horse.”

  Even if one saddles oneself to the word-count baby horse, you’ll often find the definitive range varies from a minimum of fifteen- or twenty-thousand words to as many as fifty-thousand words. Well, at least we know a novella is at least fifty-thousand words . . . or maybe forty thousand . . .

  Except practically, in the world of adult commercial fiction, you will be hard-pressed to find a publisher wanting to publish anything less than seventy-five thousand words as a novel. Cozy mysteries and category romance, however, can be shorter. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels (depending on subgenre) start in the eighty- to ninety-thousand word range. (Yes, of course there are always exceptions.)

  As in life, one finds truly hard and fast countable rules only in games or particular situations/systems. In the science fiction and fantasy world that means “awards.” Word count is the determinative factor for award categories. Both the Nebula and Hugo Awards set the length for works in the novella category as between seventeen-thousand-five-hundred words and forty-thousand words. The Shirley Jackson Award (for psychological suspense, horror, or dark fantasy) agrees with that length, but the World Fantasy Award considers one word over ten thousand as the distinction between short fiction and novella; the British Fantasy Award considers fifteen-thousand words as the minimum.

  Confused?

  It comes down to deciding which genre “standard” to choose. For this opening foray at least, we chose to go with fiction between seventeen-thousand-five-hundred words and forty-thousand words. The shortest novella chosen is about eighteen-thousand-two-hundred words long; the longest is thirty-eight thousand.

  The next question is: why single out science fiction and fantasy novellas for a year’s best anthology? Aren’t they included in already-published annual series? Well, yes and no. Gardner Dozois and his The Year’s Best Science Fiction (Macmillan)—now in its thirty-second year—is about seven-hundred-fifty pages or so. Dozois has the room to reprint several novellas along with shorter works, and he usually does. The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine (2015, Solaris), edited by Jonathan Strahan, has at least one novella this year. Our sister series from Prime Books—Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy (2015 marks its seventh volume)—includes one or two. I usually include a couple of novellas in my own The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror (sixth edition for 2015), but its theme—though broad—is on the dark side. Ellen Datlow focuses solely on horror in her The Best Horror of the Year Volume Seven (2015, Night Shade Books). The Year’s Best Weird Fiction (from Undertow Publications, overseen by Michael Kelly with a different editor each year) obviously concentrates on “the weird.”

  Then, quoting Stephen King from his introduction to Different Seasons (1982):

  [The novella is an] ill-defined and disreputable literary banana republic; it is too long to be published in a magazine or literary journal and too short to be published on its own in book format.

  In other words, it is hard to find places to publish novellas. More than three decades later, his statement is, to an extent, still true. But in science fiction and fantasy, you will find novellas in some print and online publications, the occasional anthology, and published as (often limited edition) books and chapbooks. Nowadays, they are also being published as standalone ebooks. That’s a lot of sometimes obscure territory for the average reader to cover.

  There is also the problem of knowledge and access. One of the best science fiction novellas published in 2013 was Black Helicopters by Caitlín R. Kiernan. It was available only as a companion hardcover to the six-hundred copies of the numbered, signed, limited edition of her collection The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories. Published by Subterranean Press, the beautiful collection cost $60. Another outstanding novella from 2013 was Spin by Nina Allen, published by TTA Press in the UK. More accessible as far as price, but the average reader—at least in the US—was probably unaware of it. Yet another, “Rock of Ages” by Jay Lake, was published only in an audio anthology, METAropolis: Green Space. Do you listen to novellas often?

  Finally, on the artistic level I will quote Robert Silverberg:

  [The novella] is one of the richest and most rewarding of literary forms . . . it allows for more extended development of theme and character than does the short story, without making the elaborate structural demands of the full-length book. Thus it provides an intense, detailed exploration of its subject, providing to some degree both the concentrated focus of the short story and the broad scope of the novel.

  In sum, we think we have reason(s) enough and hope you agree.

  Admittedly, the novellas in this first The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novellas are not ALL of “the best” published in 2014. Among other stellar short novels (which, for various reasons do not appear herein) in alphabetical order by author:

  We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory (Tachyon Publications). I’ll quote the Publishers Weekly review: “[S]cathingly funny, horrific yet oddly inspiring . . . [b]lending the stark realism of pain and isolation with the liberating force of the fantastic, Gregory makes it easy to believe that the world is an illusion, behind which lurks an alternative truth—dark, degenerate, and sublime.”

  “Children of the Fang” by John Langan (Lovecraft’s Monsters, ed. Ellen Datlow: Tachyon Publications). The unnamed race of reptiles in H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Nameless City” is not among his best-known eldritch creations, but Langan takes them and runs with a story of a long-kept family secret that ultimately affects three generations. (I have reprinted this one in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror
: 2015, also from Prime Books.)

  “The Regular” by Ken Liu (Upgraded, ed. Neil Clarke: Wyrm Publishing). Liu again shows he is a masterful, highly readable writer with this compelling tech-based futuristic detective noir story.

  The Good Shabti by Robert Sharp (The Good Shabti: Jurassic London). A marvelous weaving of two stories—one set in ancient Egypt; the other in the near future where some brilliant, but perhaps now wise, scientists are attempting to revivify a Pharaoh’s mummy—that updates the iconic mummy story for this century. (This one will be reprinted in another anthology I’ve edited, the forthcoming The Mammoth Book of the Mummy.)

  “Entanglement” by Vandana Singh (Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future, eds. Ed Finn & Kathryn Cramer: William Morrow). An outstanding hard science-fiction story about ecological disaster that (for a change) optimistically reminds us human beings can help each other, even if they are connected only by a high-tech experimental network

  “The Prodigal Son” by Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, October/November 2014). If Earthlings were to attempt to populate a distant world, transporting only genetic material and not people—what ethical and religious conflicts might arise?

  “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)” by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Press Magazine, Summer 2014). Three narratives—Mara’s, a girl dying of cancer; Jakub’s, her father who has built an AI version of Mara; and Ruth’s, the “automaton”—combine for an emotionally resonant exploration of family, love, and loss.

  Lavie Tidhar, “Kur-A-Len” (Black Gods Kiss: PS Publishing). A “guns and sorcery” novella featuring Gorel of Goliris. I’ll quote the Locus review: “[A]lmost the pure essence of pulp—violent, action-packed, paced like a runaway freight train, politically incorrect, and socially unredeemable.” (This, too, is included in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2015.)

  Between the nine novellas republished here and those I recommend above, I think there are enough examples to convince you—if you are not already a true believer—of the worth of science fiction and fantasy novellas . . . at least until we return with the 2016 edition!

  Paula Guran

  28 April 2015

  International Astronomy Day

  YESTERDAY’S KIN

  Nancy Kress

  “We see in these facts some deep organic bond, prevailing throughout space and time. . . . This bond, on my theory, is simple inheritance.”

  —Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

  I: S MINUS 10.5 MONTHS

  Marianne

  The publication party was held in the dean’s office, which was supposed to be an honor. Oak-paneled room, sherry in little glasses, small-paned windows facing the quad—the room was trying hard to be a Commons someplace like Oxford or Cambridge, a task for which it was several centuries too late. The party was trying hard to look festive. Marianne’s colleagues, except for Evan and the dean, were trying hard not to look too envious, or at their watches.

  “Stop it,” Evan said at her from behind the cover of his raised glass.

  “Stop what?”

  “Pretending you hate this.”

  “I hate this,” Marianne said.

  “You don’t.”

  He was half right. She didn’t like parties but she was proud of her paper, which had been achieved despite two years of gene sequencers that kept breaking down, inept graduate students who contaminated samples with their own DNA, murmurs of “Lucky find” from Baskell, with whom she’d never gotten along. Baskell, an old-guard physicist, saw her as a bitch who refused to defer to rank or back down gracefully in an argument. Many people, Marianne knew, saw her as some variant of this. The list included two of her three grown children.

  Outside the open casements, students lounged on the grass in the mellow October sunshine. Three girls in cut-off jeans played Frisbee, leaping at the blue flying saucer and checking to see if the boys sitting on the stone wall were watching. Feinberg and Davidson, from Physics, walked by, arguing amiably. Marianne wished she were with them instead of at her own party.

  “Oh God,” she said to Evan, “Curtis just walked in.”

  The president of the university made his ponderous way across the room. Once he had been a historian, which might be why he reminded Marianne of Henry VIII. Now he was a campus politician, as power-mad as Henry but stuck at a second-rate university where there wasn’t much power to be had. Marianne held against him not his personality but his mind; unlike Henry, he was not all that bright. And he spoke in clichés.

  “Dr. Jenner,” he said, “congratulations. A feather in your cap, and a credit to us all.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Curtis,” Marianne said.

  “Oh, ‘Ed,’ please.”

  “Ed.” She didn’t offer her own first name, curious to see if he remembered it. He didn’t. Marianne sipped her sherry.

  Evan jumped into the awkward silence. “I’m Dr. Blanford, visiting post-doc,” he said in his plummy British accent. “We’re all so proud of Marianne’s work.”

  “Yes! And I’d love for you to explain to me your innovative process, ah, Marianne.”

  He didn’t have a clue. His secretary had probably reminded him that he had to put in an appearance at the party: Dean of Science’s office, 4:30 Friday, in honor of that publication by Dr. Jenner in—quick look at email—in Nature, very prestigious, none of our scientists have published there before . . .

  “Oh,” Marianne said as Evan poked her discreetly in the side: Play nice! “it wasn’t so much an innovation in process as unexpected results from known procedures. My assistants and I discovered a new haplogroup of mitochondrial DNA. Previously it was thought that Homo sapiens consisted of thirty haplogroups, and we found a thirty-first.”

  “By sequencing a sample of contemporary genes, you know,” Evan said helpfully. “Sequencing and verifying.”

  Anything said in upper-crust British automatically sounded intelligent, and Dr. Curtis looked suitably impressed. “Of course, of course. Splendid results. A star in your crown.”

  “It’s yet another haplogroup descended,” Evan said with malicious helpfulness, “from humanity’s common female ancestor one hundred fifty thousand years ago. ‘Mitochondrial Eve.’ ”

  Dr. Curtis brightened. There had been a TV program about Mitochondrial Eve, Marianne remembered, featuring a buxom actress in a leopard-skin sarong. “Oh, yes! Wasn’t that—”

  “I’m sorry, you can’t go in there!” someone shrilled in the corridor outside the room. All conversation ceased. Heads swiveled toward three men in dark suits pushing their way past the knot of graduate students by the door. The three men wore guns.

  Another school shooting, Marianne thought, where can I—

  “Dr. Marianne Jenner?” the tallest of the three men said, flashing a badge. “I’m Special Agent Douglas Katz of the FBI. We’d like you to come with us.”

  Marianne said, “Am I under arrest?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. We are acting under direct order of the president of the United States. We’re here to escort you to New York.”

  Evan had taken Marianne’s hand—she wasn’t sure just when. There was nothing romantic in the handclasp, nor anything sexual. Evan, twenty-five years her junior and discreetly gay, was a friend, an ally, the only other evolutionary biologist in the department and the only one who shared Marianne’s cynical sense of humor. “Or so we thought,” they said to each other whenever any hypothesis proved wrong. Or so we thought . . . His fingers felt warm and reassuring around her suddenly icy ones.

  “Why am I going to New York?”

  “I’m afraid we can’t tell you that. But it is a matter of national security.”

  “Me? What possible reason—?”

  Special Agent Katz almost, but not quite, hid his impatience at her questions. “I wouldn’t know, ma’am. My orders are to escort you to UN Special Mission Headquarters in Manhattan.”

  Marianne looked at her gaping colleagues, at the wide-eyed grad students, at Dr. Curtis, who was al
ready figuring how this could be turned to the advantage of the university. She freed her hand from Evan’s, and managed to keep her voice steady.

  “Please excuse me, Dr. Curtis, Dean. It seems I’m needed for something connected with . . . with the aliens.”

  Noah

  One more time, Noah Jenner rattled the doorknob to the apartment. It felt greasy from too many unwashed palms, and it was still locked. But he knew Emily was in there. That was the kind of thing he was always, somehow, right about. He was right about things that didn’t do him any good.

  “Emily,” he said softly through the door, “please open up.”

  Nothing.

  “Emily, I have nowhere else to go.”

  Nothing.

  “I’ll stop, I promise. I won’t do sugarcane ever again.”

  The door opened a crack, chain still in place, and Emily’s despairing face appeared. She wasn’t the kind of girl given to dramatic fury, but her quiet despair was even harder to bear. Not that Noah didn’t deserve it. He knew he did. Her fair hair hung limply on either side of her long, sad face. She wore the green bathrobe he liked, with the butterfly embroidered on the left shoulder.

  “You won’t stop,” Emily said. “You can’t. You’re an addict.”

  “It’s not an addictive drug. You know that.”

  “Not physically, maybe. But it is for you. You won’t give it up. I’ll never know who you really are.”

  “I—”

  “I’m sorry, Noah. But—go away.” She closed and re-locked the door.

  Noah stood slumped against the dingy wall, waiting to see if anything else would happen. Nothing did. Eventually, as soon as he mustered the energy, he would have to go away.

  Was she right? Would he never give up sugarcane? It wasn’t that it delivered a high: it didn’t. No rush of dopamine, no psychedelic illusions, no out-of-body experiences, no lowering of inhibitions. It was just that on sugarcane, Noah felt like he was the person he was supposed to be. The problem was that it was never the same person twice. Sometimes he felt like a warrior, able to face and ruthlessly defeat anything. Sometimes he felt like a philosopher, deeply content to sit and ponder the universe. Sometimes he felt like a little child, dazzled by the newness of a fresh morning. Sometimes he felt like a father (he wasn’t), protective of the entire world. Theories said that sugarcane released memories of past lives, or stimulated the collective unconscious, or made temporarily solid the images of dreams. One hypothesis was that it created a sort of temporary, self-induced Korsakoff’s Syndrome, the neurological disorder in which invented selves seem completely true. No one knew how sugarcane really acted on the brain. For some people, it did nothing at all. For Noah, who had never felt he fit in anywhere, it gave what he had never had: a sense of solid identity, if only for the hours that the drug stayed in his system.