Search Worlds Without End

For more than twenty years The Year's Best Science Fiction has been recognized as the best collection of short science fiction writing in the universe and an essential resource for every science fiction fan. In 2005 the original Best of the Best collected the finest short stories from that series and became a benchmark in the SF field. Now, for the first time ever, Hugo Award-winning editor Gardner Dozios sifts through hundreds of stories and dozens of authors who have gone on to become some of the most esteemed practitioners of the form, to bring readers the ultimate anthology of short science fiction novels from his legendary series.

Included are such notable short novels as:

• Sailing to Byzantium by Robert Silverberg
  In the fiftieth century, people of Earth are able to create entire cities on a whim, including those of mythology and legend. When twentieth-century traveler Charles Philip accidentally lands in this aberrant time period, he is simultaneously obsessed with discovering more about this alluring world and getting back home. But in a world made entirely of man's creation, things are not always as they seem on the surface.
• Forgiveness Day by Ursula K. Le Guin
  Le Guin returns to her Hainish-settled interstellar community, the Ekumen, to tell the tale of two star-crossed lovers who are literally worlds apart in this story of politics, violence, religion, and cultural disparity.
• Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds
  On a sea-wold planet covered with idyllic tropical oceans, peace seems pervasive. Beneath the placid water lurks an ominous force that has the potential to destroy all tranquility.

Contributors include: Greg Egan; Joe Haldeman; James Patrick Kelly; Nancy Kress; Ursula K. Le Guin; Ian R. MacLeod; Ian McDonald; Maureen F. McHugh; Frederick Pohl; Alastair Reynolds; Robert Silverberg; Michael Swanwick; Walter Jon Williams.

With work spanning two decades, The Best of the Best, Volume 2 stands as the ultimate anthology of short science fiction novels ever published in the world.

Table of Contents:

• Robert Silverberg: "Sailing To Byzantium"
• Walter Jon Williams: "Surfacing"
• Joe Haldeman: "The Hemingway Hoax"
• James Patrick Kelly: "Mr. Boy"
• Nancy Kress: "Beggars In Spain"
• Michael Swanwick: "Griffin's Egg"
• Frederick Pohl: "Outnumbering The Dead"
• Ursula K. LeGuin: "Forgiveness Day"
• Maureen F. McHugh: "The Cost To Be Wise"
• Greg Egan: "Oceanic"
• Ian McDonald: "Tendeléo's Story"
• Ian R. MacLeod: "New Light On The Drake Equation"
• Alastair Reynolds: "Turquoise Days"

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Year's Best Science Fiction Novels: 1952) - essay by Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty
• Izzard and the Membrane - (1951) - novella by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• ...And Then There Were None - (1951) - novella by Eric Frank Russell
• Flight to Forever - (1950) - novella by Poul Anderson
• The Hunting Season - (1951) - novella by Frank M. Robinson
• Seeker of the Sphinx - (1951) - novella by Arthur C. Clarke (variant of The Road to the Sea)

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Year's Best Science Fiction Novels: 1953) - (1953) - essay by Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty
• Firewater - (1952) - novella by William Tenn
• Category Phoenix - (1952) - novella by Lyle G. Boyd and William C. Boyd [as by Boyd Ellanby]
• Surface Tension - [Pantropy] - (1952) - novelette by James Blish
• The Gadget Had a Ghost - (1952) - novelette by Murray Leinster
• Conditionally Human - (1952) - novella by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Year's Best Science Fiction Novels: 1954) - essay by Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty
• The Enormous Room - (1953) - novella by H. L. Gold and Robert W. Krepps
• Assignment in Aldebaran - (1953) - novella by Kendell Foster Crossen (variant of Assignment to Aldebaran)
• The Oceans Are Wide - (1954) - novella by Frank M. Robinson
• The Sentimentalists - (1953) - novelette by Murray Leinster
• Second Variety - [Claws - 1] - (1953) - novelette by Philip K. Dick