The Year's Top Hard Science Fiction Stories

By: Gregory Benford, Gwyneth Jones, Shariann Lewitt, Ken Liu, Ian R. MacLeod, Paul McAuley, Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by: Tom Dheere, Nancy Linari, Henrietta Meire

An unabridged audio collection spotlighting the "best of the best" hard science fiction stories published in 2016 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster, as narrated by top voice talents.

In "Vortex", by Gregory Benford, astronauts find a once thriving microbial lifeform that carpets the caves of Mars dying off.

A code monkey tracks down the vain creator of a pernicious software virus that people jack cerebrally in "RedKing", by Craig DeLancey.

In "Number Nine Moon", by Alex Irvine, illicit scavengers on Mars are on a rescue mission to save themselves after one of their team members dies.

A young girl's thirst for vengeance becomes a struggle for survival when she is swallowed by a gigantic sea creature on an alien planet in "Of the Beast in the Belly", by C.W. Johnson.

In "The Seventh Gamer", by Gwyneth Jones, a writer immerses herself into a MMORPG community to search for characters being played by real aliens from other worlds.

A woman armed with a rifle stalks a herd of cloned wooly mammoths in British Columbia in "Chasing Ivory", by Ted Kosmatka.

In "Fieldwork", by Shariann Lewitt, a volcanologist struggles with her research on Europa where both her mother and grandmother suffered dire consequences.

A daughter pays homage to her mother with mega-engineering projects to deal with climate change over eons in "Seven Birthdays", by Ken Liu.

In "The Visitor from Taured", by Ian R. MacLeod, a cosmologist in the near future is obsessed with proving his theory of multiverses.

The citizens of a small town on a "Jackaroo" planet object to a corporation placing a radio telescope near local alien artifacts in "Something Happened Here, But We're Not Quite Sure What It Was", by Paul McAuley.

And, finally, in "16 Questions for Kamala Chatterjee", by Alastair Reynolds, a graduate student defends her dissertation on a solar anomaly that threatens humanity.

©2016 Gregory Benford, Gwyneth Jones, Shariann Lewitt, Ken Liu, Ian R. MacLeod, Paul McAuley, Alastair Reynolds, Craig DeLancey, Alex Irvine, C.W. Johnson, Ted Kosmatka (P)2017 AudioText

Varied stories

This collection of short stories was excellent. There are stories that I had little interest in reading, but the majority were excellent.

The stories weren't bad writing, couldn't hook in

I delight in hard fiction, especially, Si-fi,. The hook for my reading/listening is when I come away with a better understanding of how the world fits together, or new perspectives on what I know. One tale of a place in time that we move planetary systems by vecturing the star was a rare delight to hear, yet, yet... I was not wowed, and I don't know why...

2 hits, 2 misses, but all enjoyable

I enjoyed all 11 stories, although 2 were intense character portraits with only superficial SF settings, a formula I usually don’t like (Ted Kosmatka’s “Chasing Ivory” and Shariann Lewitt’s “Fieldwork”). My favorites were probably the two stories that are most undeniably HARD SF: Alastair Reynold’s “16 Questions for Kamala Chatterjee” and Ken Liu’s “Seven Birthdays”.

Two out of Eleven

I only really liked two of the 11 stories:

"RedKing", by Craig DeLancey.
"Seven Birthdays", by Ken Liu.

Several of the others were not Hard Science Fiction by my definitions.
Others were Hard Science Fiction but lacked an engaging story.

The narrators were all fine.

too ruminative for me.

I'm glad to see writers moving away from war and violence, but I like exploration, speculation, and a sense of wonder. These stories were so self-consciously literate that forgot to take us somewhere new and fascinating. and if Science Fiction need not be all running gun battles, it also does not need to rdtreat to expository rumination, either. There is a middle ground of discovery and extrapolation, or the genre is wasted.