The Posleen are coming and the models all say the same thing: Without the Panama Canal, the US is doomed to starvation and defeat. Despite being overstretched preparing to defend the US, the military sends everything it has left: A handful of advanced Armored Combat Suits, rejuvenated veterans from the many decades that Panama was a virtual colony and three antiquated warships. Other than that, the Panamanians are on their own. Replete with detailed imagery of the landscape, characters and politics that have made the jungle-infested peninsula a Shangri-La for so many over the years, Yellow Eyes is a hard-hitting look at facing a swarming alien horde with not much more than wits and guts. Fortunately, the Panamanians, and the many veterans that think of it as a second home, have plenty of both.

In this exhilarating, moving new work, Guy Gavriel Kay casts brilliant light on the ways in which history—whether of a culture or a family—refuses to be buried.

Ned Marriner, fifteen years old, has accompanied his photographer father to Provence for a six-week «shoot» of images for a glossy coffee-table book. Gradually, Ned discovers a very old story playing itself out in this modern world of iPods, cellphones, and seven-seater vans whipping along roads walked by Celtic tribes and Roman legions.

On one holy, haunted night of the ancient year, when the borders between the living and the dead are down and fires are lit upon the hills, Ned, his family, and his friends are shockingly drawn into this tale, as dangerous, mythic figures from conflicts of long ago erupt into the present, claiming and changing lives.

Once again, the finest short-form sf offerings of the year have been collected in a single volume. With Year's Best SF 17, acclaimed, award-winning editors and anthologists David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer demonstrate the amazing depth and power of contemporary speculative fiction, showcasing astonishing stories from some of the genre's most respected names as well as exciting new writers to watch. Prepare to travel light years from the ordinary into a tomorrow at once breathtaking, frightening, and possible, with tales of wonder from: Elizabeth Bear

Gregory Benford

Neil Gaiman

Nancy Kress

Michael Swanwick

and others.

First published in the anthology Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, edited by Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW, 1995); authorized by Dame Jean Conan Doyle.

Winner of both the CompuServe Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum’s Sixth Annual HOMer Award for Best Short Story of the Year and Le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, France’s top SF award, for Best Foreign Short Story of the Year.

The village of Hemmersmoor is a place untouched by time and shrouded in superstition: There is the grand manor house whose occupants despise the villagers, the small pub whose regulars talk of revenants, the old mill no one dares to mention. This is where four young friends come of age—in an atmosphere thick with fear and suspicion. Their innocent games soon bring them face-to-face with the village’s darkest secrets in this eerily dispassionate, astonishingly assured novel, evocative of Stephen King’s classic short story “Children of the Corn” and infused with the spirit of the Brothers Grimm.

A military scifi classic, by one of the modern masters of world science fiction.

More than thirty years ago, a hyper-dimensional passageway suddenly appeared over the continent of Antarctica. Fighters from the mysterious alien force known as the JAM poured through the passage, the first wave an attempted terrestrial invasion. Their ferocity was unquestionable, their aim unknown. Humanity, united by a common enemy, managed to repel the invaders, chasing them back through the passageway to the strange planet nicknamed “Fairy.”

The task of finishing the battle was given to the newly formed FAF, a combat force created to go to Fairy and eliminate the JAM bases once and for all. Now, in the midst of a war with no end in sight, Second Lieutenant Rei Fukai carries out his missions in the skies over Fairy. Attached to Tactical Combat and Surveillance Unit 3 of the Special Air Force, his duty is to gather information on the enemy and bring it back to base—no matter the human cost. His only constant companion in this lonely task is his fighter plane, the sentient FFR-31 Super Sylph, call sign: Yukikaze.

In the days of the first spring flood in the Year of the Gryphon the Lords of High Hallack made their covenant with the Were Riders of the Waste. Those who came to speak with the lords wore the bodies of men but they were not of humankind. They were dour fighters...men—or creatures—of power who ranged the wilderness and were greatly feared. How many there were no man knew but that they had a force beyond human knowledge was certain. Shape-changers, warlocks, sorcerers...rumour had it they were all that and more.

Exiles from afar in space and time, who had opened doors on forbidden things and loosed that which could not be controlled, they wandered until the stars moved into new patterns and they might again seek the gate into their homeland and ask admittance.

Now, in the Year of the Unicorn, they took brides from among men, according to the bargain, and rode eastwards. And among them rode Gillan, the waif, the nameless, who seemed to see beyond the shape of things that were.

Red and Slim found the two strange little animals the morning after they heard the thunder sounds. They knew that they could never show their new pets to their parents.

Most doctors like to keep a clear distinction between ailments and patients…

All prayers are answered, but sometimes the answer is no. And sometimes the answer is “let me talk to my manager and get back to you.”