National Network for Equitable Library Service

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author and guest editor Rebecca Roanhorse and series editor John Joseph Adams select twenty pieces that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year and explore the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today. Today's readers of science fiction and fantasy have an appetite for stories that address a wide variety of voices, perspectives, and styles.

The nine stories in this debut collection witness Southern queer and genderqueer characters determined to find themselves reflected in the annals of history, whatever the cost. As Thomas's subjects trace deceit and violence through Southern tall tales and their own pasts, their journeys reveal the porous boundaries of body, land, and history, and the sometimes ruthless awakenings of self-discovery.

Set across the United States and abroad, these award-winning stories feature immigrants, refugees, and those on the brink of dispossession, all struggling to begin again, all fighting to belong.

In these five autobiographical stories, the author renders a glorious Rwanda from the obliterating force of recent history, summoning phantom memories of her home that radiate with the fierce ache of a survivor.

This collection gathers John Varley's best stories, many out of print for years.

National Book Award-winner Ha Jin brings us a collection of stories that delve into the experiences of Chinese immigrants in America. All of Ha Jin's characters struggle in situations that stir their conflicting desires to remain attached to their native land and traditions while also exploring their newfound social and economic freedoms.

A dazzling collection of short stories from the New York Times bestselling author of Prep, American Wife, and Eligible Curtis Sittenfeld has established a reputation as a sharp chronicler of the modern age who humanizes her subjects even as she skewers them. Now, with this first collection of short fiction, her "astonishing gift for creating characters that take up residence in readers' heads" (The Washington Post) is showcased like never before.

In this collection of stories, Maggie Shipstead dives into eclectic and vivid settings, from an Olympic village to a deathbed in Paris to a Pacific atoll, and illuminating a cast of indelible characters, Shipstead traverses ordinary and unusual realities with cunning, compassion, and wit. In "Acknowledgments," a male novelist reminisces bitterly on the woman who inspired his first novel, attempting to make peace with his humiliations before the book goes to print.

I tell you, do not go near that place. Do not go near it. Graywolves guard the ground there. Girls are growing from guts, enough for a body and language all the way out of this world. An eight-year-old trauma victim is enlisted as an underground courier, rushing frozen organs through the alleys of Eastern Europe. A young janitor transforms discarded objects into a fantastical, sprawling miniature city until a shocking discovery forces him to rethink his creation. A brazen child tells off a pack of schoolyard tormentors with the spirited invention of an eleventh commandment.

Villains have all the fun-everyone knows that-and this anthology takes you on a wild ride through the dark side! The top villains from sixteen urban fantasy series get their own stories-including the baddies of New York Times bestselling authors Jim Butcher, Kevin Hearne, Kelley Armstrong, Seanan McGuire, and Jonathan Maberry. For every hero trying to save the world, there's a villain trying to tear it all down. In this can't-miss anthology edited by Joseph Nassise (The Templar Chronicles), you get to plot world domination with the best of the evildoers we love to hate!