A human detective and their partner, an enhanced chimpanzee, investigate a strange murder on the subway . . . a smart home goes into lockdown, turning a man's own home into his prison . . . at a robot factory, something has caused the machines to attempt to escape . . . mysterious seeds raining down from deep space could be the first sign of an alien invasion . . . a woman seeks to restore a broken AI, hoping it can help return humanity to better days . . . 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 Four, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and twenty-nine of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2018. Table of Contents Introduction: A State of Short SF Field in 2018 When We Were Starless--Simone Heller Intervention--Kelly Robson All the Time We've Left to Spend--Alyssa Wong Domestic Violence--Madeline Ashby Ten Landscapes of Nili Fossae--Ian McDonald Prophet of the Roads--Naomi Kritzer Traces of Us--Vanessa Fogg Theories of Flight--Linda Nagata Lab B-15--Nick Wolven Requiem--Vandana Singh Sour Milk Girls--Erin Roberts Mother Tongues--S. Qiouyi Lu Singles' Day--Samantha Murray Nine Last Days on Planet Earth--Daryl Gregory The Buried Giant--Lavie Tidhar The Anchorite Wakes--R.S.A. Garcia Entropy War--Yoon Ha Lee An Equation of State--Robert Reed Quantifying Trust--John Chu Hard Mary--Sofia Samatar Freezing Rain, a Chance of Falling--L.X. Beckett Okay, Glory--Elizabeth Bear Heavy Lifting--A.T. Greenblatt Lions and Gazelles--Hannu Rajaniemi Different Seas--Alastair Reynolds Among the Water Buffaloes, a Tiger's Steps--Aliette de Bodard Byzantine Empathy--Ken Liu Meat and Salt and Sparks--Rich Larson Umbernight--Carolyn Ives Gilman 2018 Recommended Reading List
