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The Year's Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 2
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific accuracy, inside the realm of scientific possibility, that anything that occurs in the story is not outside the known physical laws of the universe. . An anthology collection spotlighting the "best of the best" hard science fiction stories published in 2017 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster..:
Contents:
Shadows of Eternity / by Gregory Benford: a student investigates enigmatic SETI recordings from probes sent to nearby stars despite her teachers’ admonishments to stick to the curriculum.
The Chatter of Monkeys / by Bond Elam: An alien robot offers to help save Earth as war and pollution ravage the last of the survivors on the planet.
Acadie / by Dave Hutchinson, the first humans still, even after five hundred years, hunt across the stars for their augmented children who have left Earth in search of paradise.
Canoe / by Nancy Kress.: the crew of an exploratory starship finds an icy moon that might harbor life.
The Use of Things / by Ramez Naam: an astronaut struggles to survive after being jolted free from an asteroid while on a solitary prospecting mission.
The Proving Ground / by Alec Nevala-Lee.: a problem with the local birds threatens the rebuilding of Bikini Island as sea-levels rise due to global warming.
Holdfast / by Alastair Reynolds: a genmod human soldier faces off with an alien warrior in the inhospitable terrain of a superjovian planet.
Vanguard 2.0 / by Carter Scholz.: aRussian astronaut, gathering debris in near-Earth space, must make tough moral choices when asked to carry out a special mission.
ZeroS / by Peter Watts. after a terrorist attack, a technically dead fish farmer gets a new body and second chance at life as an experimental super soldier.
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Contents:
Shadows of Eternity / by Gregory Benford: a student investigates enigmatic SETI recordings from probes sent to nearby stars despite her teachers’ admonishments to stick to the curriculum.
The Chatter of Monkeys / by Bond Elam: An alien robot offers to help save Earth as war and pollution ravage the last of the survivors on the planet.
Acadie / by Dave Hutchinson, the first humans still, even after five hundred years, hunt across the stars for their augmented children who have left Earth in search of paradise.
Canoe / by Nancy Kress.: the crew of an exploratory starship finds an icy moon that might harbor life.
The Use of Things / by Ramez Naam: an astronaut struggles to survive after being jolted free from an asteroid while on a solitary prospecting mission.
The Proving Ground / by Alec Nevala-Lee.: a problem with the local birds threatens the rebuilding of Bikini Island as sea-levels rise due to global warming.
Holdfast / by Alastair Reynolds: a genmod human soldier faces off with an alien warrior in the inhospitable terrain of a superjovian planet.
Vanguard 2.0 / by Carter Scholz.: aRussian astronaut, gathering debris in near-Earth space, must make tough moral choices when asked to carry out a special mission.
ZeroS / by Peter Watts. after a terrorist attack, a technically dead fish farmer gets a new body and second chance at life as an experimental super soldier.
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- GenresScience Fiction
248 pages, Paperback
Published December 11, 2018
154 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 15, 2026
Yearning for the old stuff
Look, these are all well written and interesting. But have endings gone out of style? One of these doesn'tji have one. One is ambiguous.
These stories are inventive, but somehow not as much fun as a nineteen-fifties Clarke collection.
Lots of ideas, characters well drawn, but less punchy than what I grew up on.
Look, these are all well written and interesting. But have endings gone out of style? One of these doesn'tji have one. One is ambiguous.
These stories are inventive, but somehow not as much fun as a nineteen-fifties Clarke collection.
Lots of ideas, characters well drawn, but less punchy than what I grew up on.
July 20, 2020
Excellent collection . I read it exclusively to the finish. The series captured my interest and made me
And hoping there would be more. I thoroughly enjoyed the reading, and I home this will continue. Thank you, dale
And hoping there would be more. I thoroughly enjoyed the reading, and I home this will continue. Thank you, dale
June 11, 2023
Slightly disappointing. There were some very good stories, some okay stories, but too many that I skipped that didn't feel like hard SF. A lot of the stories came from just two anthologies which was interesting.
July 13, 2020
Chock-full-o-science! With a couple of seriously mind-bending stories, and all the rest satisfyingly tight and solid Sci Fi.
If you like your Sci Fi titanium hard, read it.
If you like your Sci Fi titanium hard, read it.
November 28, 2020
A book of good hard science stories, read them twice so must be good. Very nice to find a good editor, I miss Gardner Dozois.
February 22, 2021
Good read.
This book is a good read if you like hard science fiction. The stories are varied and each brings out the author's particular style of writing. Worth a look.
This book is a good read if you like hard science fiction. The stories are varied and each brings out the author's particular style of writing. Worth a look.
August 16, 2022
Not too much here to talk about. The best story, Acadie, was way too long but had a real surprise ending.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews