Peter Watts

Since 2006, Clarkesworld Magazine has been entertaining science fiction and fantasy fans with their brand of unique science fiction and fantasy stories. Collected here are all of the stories this Hugo Award-winning magazine published during their fourth year. Included in this volume are twenty-four stories by visionary writers of short fiction, including Jay Lake, Kij Johnson, Catherynne M. Valente, Robert Reed, Lavie Tidhar, Peter Watts and more CONTENTSIntroduction by Neil ClarkeBetween Two Dragons by Yoon Ha LeeThe Cull by Robert ReedThe Mermaids Singing Each to Each by Cat RamboOf Melei, of Ulthar by Gord SellarNight, in Dark Perfection by Richard ParksThe Grandmother-Granddaughter Conspiracy by Marissa LingenBrief Candle by Jason K. ChapmanAll the King's Monsters by Megan ArkenbergTorquing Vacuum by Jay LakeThe Language of the Whirlwind by Lavie TidharA Sweet Calling by Tony PiAlone with Gandhari by Gord SellarThe History Within Us by Matthew KresselJanuary by Becca De La RosaMessenger by J.M. SidorovaA Jar of Goodwill by Tobias S. BuckellFutures in the Memories Market by Nina Kiriki HoffmanMy Father's Singularity by Brenda CooperBeach Blanket Spaceship by Sandra McDonaldThe Association of the Dead by Rahul KanakiaSpar by Kij JohnsonPaper Cradle by Stephen GaskellThirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time by Catherynne M. ValenteThe Things by Peter WattsClarkesworld Citizens - Official CensusAbout Clarkesworld

MANHATTAN IS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. THEY'RE NOT FROM AROUND HERE. Welcome to the Big Apple, son. Welcome to the city that never sleeps: invaded by monstrous fusions of meat and machinery, defended by a private army that makes Blackwater look like the Red Cross, ravaged by a disfiguring plague that gifts its victims with religious rapture while it eats them alive. You've been thrown into this meat grinder without warning, without preparation, without a clue. Your whole squad was mowed down the moment they stepped onto the battlefield. And the chorus of voices whispering in your head keeps saying that all of this is on you: that you and you alone might be able to turn the whole thing around if you only knew what the hell was going on. You'd like to help. Really you would. But it's not just the aliens that are gunning for you. Your own kind hunts you as a traitor, and your job might be a bit easier if you didn't have the sneaking suspicion they could be right. . . .

An enormous tidal wave on the west coast of North America has just killed millions. Lenie Clarke, in a black wetsuit, walks out of the ocean onto a Pacific Northwest beach filled with the oppressed and drugged homeless of the Asian world, who have gotten only this far in their attempt to reach America. Is she a monster or a goddess? One thing is for sure: all hell is breaking loose.This dark, fast-paced SF novel returns to the story begun in "Starfish": all human life is threatened by a disease (actually a primeval form of life) from the distant pre-human past. It survived only in the deep ocean rift where Clarke and her companions were stationed before the corporation that employed them tried to sterilize the threat with a secret underwater nuclear strike. But Clarke was far enough away that she was able to survive and tough enough to walk home, three hundred kilometers across the ocean floor. She arrives carrying with her the potential death of the human race, and is possessed by a desire for revenge.

Recruited for their experiences with more stressful work environments, the operators of a claustrophobic power generating station three kilometers below the surface of the Pacific encounter unexpected challenges among the cliffs and trenches of the Juan de Fuca Ridge that bring their own unrealized potentials to light. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.