The Martian Obelisk

A powerful science fiction story about an architect on Earth commissioned to create (via long distance) a masterwork with materials from the last abandoned Martian colony, a monument that will last thousands of years longer than Earth, which is dying. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In science fiction's early days, stories often looked past 1984 to the year 2000 as the far unknowable future. Here now, on the brink of the twenty-first century, the future remains as distant and as unknowable as ever . . . and science fiction stories continue to explore it with delightful results: Collected in this anthology are such imaginative gems as: "The Wedding Album" by David Marusek. In a high-tech future, the line between reality and simulation has grown thin . . . and it's often hard to tell who's on what side. "Everywhere" by Geoff Ryman. Do the people who live in utopian conditions ever recognize them as such? "Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl. One of science fiction's Grand Masters returns with a star-crossing tale of the Heechee---the enigmatic, vanished aliens whose discarded technology guides mankind through the future. "A Hero of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg. Showing that the past is as much a province of the imagination as the future, this novelette returns to an alternate history when the Roman Empire never fell to show us just how the course of history can be altered. The twenty-seven stories in this collection imaginatively take us to nearby planets and distant futures, into the past and into universes no larger than a grain of sand. Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents. Supplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.

This collection launched the popular and long-running "The Year's Best Science Fiction" series: Fantastic Science Fiction! The Year's Best -- And Biggest Collection Here's the cream of the crop: short stories, novelettes, novellas by science fiction writers already famous and awarded for their high-quality work in science fiction. Writers like: Poul Anderson Joe Haldeman Tanith Lee George R.R. Martin Robert Silverberg James Tiptree, Jr. Vernor Vinge Gene Wolfe Plus writers who are newer to the field, but just as excellent! These are the stories that will vie for the Hugo and Nebula Awards this year. And we've got them all! Not ten. Not twenty. 25 GREAT SF TALES. Each one is chosen by renowned SF writer and editor Gardner R. Dozois. Among them are "Black Air" by Kim Stanley Robinson, "Blood Music" and "Hardfought" by Greg Bear, "Blind Shemmy" by Jack Dann, "Cicada Queen" by Bruce Sterling and "Slow Birds" by Ian Watson.

The multiple Locus Award-winning annual collection of the year's best science fiction stories. In the new millennium, what secrets lay beyond the far reaches of the universe? What mysteries belie the truths we once held to be self-evident? The world of science fiction has long been a porthole into the realities of tomorrow, blurring the line between life and art. Now, in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection, the very best SF authors explore ideas of a new world. This venerable collection brings together award-winning authors and masters of the field. Featuring short stories from acclaimed authors such as Indrapramit Das, Nancy Kress, Alastair Reynolds, Eleanor Arnason, James S.A. Corey & Lavie Tidhar, an extensive recommended reading guide and a summation of the year in science fiction, this annual compilation has become the definitive must-read anthology for all science fiction fans and readers interested in breaking into the genre.

“This provocative and exciting book . . . makes a startling case for there being life on Mars.” —Whitley Strieber, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Communion The Martians is an in-depth study of the theory that Mars was once a world that teemed with life. Perhaps, even, life not too dissimilar to ours. Incredibly, the Martians may still be there. Alive. The questions that this book asks and answers include the following: • What kind of society did the Martians have? • What caused their world to become harsh and desert-like? • Did global warming or nuclear war ensure the extinction of the Martians? • Are Martian artifacts strewn about the surface, just waiting to be found by the likes of NASA? • Has NASA already found such evidence, but chosen to withhold such monumental finds from the public and the media? • Could some form of the Martians still exist, deeply below the surface of the planet, in secure installations that allow them to ensure their civilization continues? • What do we know about the Martian environment, its atmosphere, and its landscape? The Martians explores the CIA’s top-secret search for the Martians, multiple photos of strange anomalies, and the latest revelations about the environment and water on Mars. And most tantalizing of all: Did an ailing Martian race come to Earth in past eons and were they confused with gods? The questions concerning life on Mars—then and now—are many. The answers are astounding.

Stephen Baxter's The Martian in the Wood, a Tor.com Original In the aftermath of the First Martian War, in the interim between it and what was to come later, England seemed to once again become a green and peaceful place, if one haunted by the terrible events in Surrey that had happened in those early years of the century. Although people hoped and prayed peace had come, they were wrong. Across the gulf of space, plans were being drawn for a return, but before they could bear fruit a terrible discovery was made deep in Holmburgh Wood, one that would tear a family apart and shock the world. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

As Earth dies, an architect is commissioned to remote build a monument on Mars from the remains of a failed colony; a man who has transferred his consciousness into a humanoid robot discovers he’s missing thirty percent of his memories, and tries to discover why; bored with life in the underground colony of an alien world, a few risk life inside one of the “whales” floating in the planet’s atmosphere; an apprentice librarian searching through centuries of SETI messages from alien civilizations makes an ominous discovery; a ship in crisis pulls a veteran multibot out from storage with an unusual assignment: pest control; the dead are given a second shot at life, in exchange for a five-year term in a zombie military program. For decades, science fiction has compelled us to imagine futures both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it’s a warning message from a survey ship, a harrowing journey to a new world, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction inspires the imagination and delivers a lens through which we can view ourselves and the world around us. With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Three, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and twenty-seven of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2017. Table of Contents Introduction: The State of Short SF Field in 2017 A Series of Steaks by Vina Jie-Min Prasad Holdfast by Alastair Reynolds Every Hour of Light and Dark by Nancy Kress The Last Novelist, or a Dead Lizard in the Yard by Matthew Kressel Shikasta by Vandana Singh Wind Will Rove by Sarah Pinsker Focus by Gord Sellar The Martian Obelisk by Linda Nagata Shadows of Eternity by Gregory Benford The Worldless by Indrapramit Das Regarding the Robot Raccoons Attached to the Hull of My Ship by Rachel Jones and Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali Belly Up by Maggie Clark Uncanny Valley by Greg Egan We Who Live in the Heart by Kelly Robson A Catalogue of Sunlight at the End of the World by A.C. Wise Meridian by Karin Lowachee The Tale of the Alcubierre Horse by Kathleen Ann Goonan Extracurricular Activities by Yoon Ha Lee In Everlasting Wisdom by Aliette de Bodard The Last Boat-Builder in Ballyvoloon by Finbarr O’Reilly The Speed of Belief by Robert Reed Death on Mars by Madeline Ashby An Evening with Severyn Grimes by Rich Larson ZeroS by Peter Watts The Secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palmer Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance by Tobias S. Buckell Permissions Recommended Reading

An unabridged collection spotlighting the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2017 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “My English Name,” by R. S. Benedict, an intelligent alien, who parasitizes an English teacher in China, falls in love. After a victorious space battle, an indentured robot finds a refugee who makes an offer it can’t refuse in “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance” by Tobias S. Buckell. In “The Moon is Not a Battlefield,” by Indrapramit Das, an Indian soldier retires on Earth after spending most of her life on the Moon. A young woman joins the U.S. Army to fight terrorists after aliens arrive on Earth bearing tech gifts unevenly dispersed to humans in “Dear Sarah” by Nancy Kress. In “An Evening with Severyn Grimes,” by Rich Larson, a gifted hacker uses cyberspace to extract pay back on the rich businessman who put her in prison. Set in the author’s hexarchate universe, an ex-Kel super soldier is enlisted to retrieve a weapon of mass destruction stolen by a rogue general in “The Chameleon’s Gloves” by Yoon Ha Lee. In “The Martian Obelisk,” by Linda Nagata, on a dying Earth, an architect remotely building a monument to mankind on Mars receives a message from an abandoned Mars colony. A petty meat counterfeiter is blackmailed into forging T-bone steaks for an anonymous thug in “A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad. In “The Residue of Fire,” by Robert Reed, a torturer tries to cope with one of his alien victims who witnessed a pivotal moment in the lives of two immortals, in this Great Ship tale. And finally, in this Revelation Space tale, a starship captain wakes from hibernation with her ship stalled next to an alien artifact and a mutiny in progress in “Night Passage” by Alastair Reynolds.