Best Science Fiction of the Year Series

Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Three (2017)

“For the third edition of his annual anthology series from Night Shade Books, he has once again assembled an impressive lineup of stories pulled across the genre publishing world. Among the more than 25 stories on offer are new classics [...] If you’re looking to discover new SFF authors, or simply seeking a sampler of the past year’s short fiction, this book is a good bet.”

Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

“Well-positioned to take on the mantle of most important sci-fi anthology [...] Clarke’s skill at selecting a variety of compelling science fiction tales shines in this excellent collection. There’s something for everyone here and very few weak entries — a highly recommended series.”

Recursor

Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Four (2018)

“Excellent […] The care with which [Clarke] has drawn from both print and online sources makes this a year’s-best that truly lives up to its title.”

Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Anthologies

Not One of Us

“Readers looking for sf that explores its furthest possibilities and helps transform their own perception of the world are highly recommended to give this anthology a look.”

Booklist, Starred Review

“Collecting 21 stories from the last two decades, this hefty and fascinating theme anthology focuses on one of SF’s major issues: If aliens aren’t just bug-eyed monsters with no more than rape and plunder on their minds, what else—who else—could they be? […] there are no inferior pieces here. This is a fine, thoughtful book.”

Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Overall, as you might imagine, if you like alien sci-fi, this is the anthology to get. A great selection of short stories and a lot of stuff worth thinking about.”

Book Gazette

The Final Frontier

“Clarkesworld editor Clarke’s stellar reprint anthology explores the expansive variety of space exploration stories, in shades from brutal to elegantly poetic […] Clarke has brought together outstanding works in which extreme environments bring out the best and worst of human nature.”

Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Many standouts in this one and likely something here for all sorts of different kinds of folks.”

Manhattan Book Review

“The variety of motifs tempts me to start drawing a map of the 21st-century-SF genre space, but the topology is all folds and wrinkles and overlaps and odd contiguities, and the territory is not flat but n-dimensional, so I keep running into myself coming around corners. (There’s a Venn diagram metaphor that might apply, but it requires spheres and tesseracts and gives me a headache when I try to visualize it.) If the following account is dis­jointed, it’s because the stories don’t fall into a tidy order – they mix and match and bounce off each other, in a miniature version of the many-voiced conversation that is the SF genre.”

Locus

“the stories in The Final Frontier echo adventures aboard the Enterprise et al very strongly. The unknown encountered in tangible and intangible form, on planets light years from Earth and in strange space wrecks—even in the human head, a variety of boundaries of human existence as we know it are colorfully pushed.”

Speculiction

More Human Than Human

“Well-known SF authors grace this collection of androids [...] A top-notch selection of imaginative and thought-provoking stories about AI, reinventing old tropes and making us revisit the eternal question of what it is to be human.”

Kirkus, Starred Review

"The best of the stories gathered here by five-time Hugo nominee Clarke (founder and editor of Clarkesworld magazine) use the tropes of androids and artificial intelligence for multifaceted interrogations of humanity and society. Some are heart-wrenching [...] others are humorous [...] Overall high quality."

Publishers Weekly

“The best of the stories gathered here by five-time Hugo nominee Clarke (founder and editor of Clarkesworld magazine) use the tropes of androids and artificial intelligence for multifaceted interrogations of humanity and society [...] Overall high quality.”

Library Journal

Touchable Unreality

“The stories are always imaginative and often glorious. They encourage readers to power down the laptop, put aside the glowing smartphone, and entertain the question, ‘What if?’”

Los Angeles Review of Books

“The typical reader is bored by the tediousness of science books and cannot finish them. But when dressed up in the form of fiction, the science can seep into readers’ minds…”

The New York Review of Books

“TOUCHABLE UNREALITY shines because its selections are more raw and more Chinese."

88 Bar

Galactic Empires

“Over all this anthology is mostly hits, remarkably few misses. Highly recommended.”

N.K. Jemisin, author of the multiple Hugo Award-winning Broken Earth Trilogy, New York Times Book Review

“This hefty anthology of imperial SF covers great space battles, small dramas within an empire, hopeless bureaucracy, and even living space stations, zooming in and out to capture every nuance [...] The diverse array of stories ensures that there’s plenty of interest for any fan of large-scale SF.”

Publishers Weekly

“As editor Clarke points out in his introduction, when most people hear the term galactic empire, they immediately picture Darth Vader and Star Wars. But there is a long history of star-faring empires in the genre, with stories that imagine our human tendencies to explore and conquer among the stars. [...] The stories gathered here, all of which have appeared elsewhere, show the huge range of possibilities of the chosen theme.”

Library Journal

“Masterful editor Neil Clarke has assembled an exotic, bountiful treasure chest of reprint tales dedicated to that mode of SF that can arguably be said to constitute the very core of the field, the space opera.”

Asimov's Science Fiction

“The first must-read anthology of the year, no question, is Neil Clarke’s Galactic Empires, an ambitious (read: huge) collection of SF tales featuring far-flung confederations in the stars. The TOC is a who’s-who of virtually everyone doing important work at short length in science fiction.”

Black Gate

“The meat of any anthology is, of course, the stories selected. Here, Clarke shows that one can have one’s cake and eat it too [...] this is a strong set of stories, showing the anthologist’s sure hand, and a marker to readers of what Galactic Empires in the 21st century are like in science fiction.”

Skiffy And Fanty

“Brings together some of the best voices writing in the genre today [...] a stunning collection of short fiction.”

Words in Ink

“This is an engaging anthology with a wide variety of themes and approaches, and that should appeal to science fiction readers of all generations. Even though it can be great escapist reading, at the same time many of the stories are shot through with themes applicable to contemporary society on this island Earth.”

The Future Fire

“Ambitious and impressive [...] I can honestly say that it’s been a while since I’ve read a science fiction anthology that is as good and diverse as this one [...] one of the best and most captivating science fiction anthologies of the year. Highly recommended!”

Risingshadow

Upgraded

“Clarke’s first themed anthology will leave readers hoping for more.”

Publishers Weekly