Rich Horton packs this anthology to the brim with bite size stories with unexpected plot twists and surprise endings. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a lead role in many of the stories. There are AIs that love humanity, such as the android in "I am Paul, Martin," by L. Shoemaker, where a future android provides medical and sweet empathetic care to Mildred, an elderly woman with Alzheimers disease. And in "Cat Pictures Please," by Naomi Kritzer, there is a caring AI who wants only to help you since it knows everything about you, and wants cat pictures in return.

In some stories, time travel happens in unique, surprising ways. For example, in "Time Bomb Time," by C.C. Finlay, the author cleverly poses the implied question, what if you read a story about time travel and find yourself reading the same conversation twice? Is it a typo? An heuristic device? Or have you traveled back a few minutes in time?

A science fiction and fantasy anthology would be incomplete without a few dystopian futures, and Mr. Horton does not disappoint. In Ray Nayler's, "In Mutability," two strangers, Sophia and Sebastian, reside in a future world where death apparently is no longer inevitable, but neither stranger has many memories. One day, at the cafe in which Sebastian spends his days, an unknown woman, Sophia, befriends him and shows him a photo of the two of them, centuries old. Neither remember each other or the photo, but why not?

In "Folding Beijing," by Hao Jingfang, (translated by Ken Liu), a future Beijing has become so crowded the population is divided into three spaces where First Space contains the rich and well educated, and Third Space contains the poor and lower classes. As each class awakens, another space rotates and folds up. Lao Dao, a Third Space waste processor, wants to enroll his daughter in a music and dance kindergarten. To do so, he must get more money by illegally carrying messages and goods to and from First Space. Author Hao Jingfang's story, however, is more than a glimpse at a possible dystopian future based on class and privilege. Rather, it is an Aesopian tale about love and friendship, and where true contentment lies.

Most of the writers in this anthology are exceptionally talented, and a few will take your breath away. In "The Karen Joy Fowler Book Club," by Nike Sulway, an older female, who loves her solitude and her library room, walks alone in a Serengeti-type outdoors and fears that her type will be extinct because the daughters do not see the need for procreation. In this beautifully told tale, are the women human?

Another author who captivates is Will Ludwigsen, whose channeling of a 1940s pulp science fiction writer and his writing for a 1960s, "Twight Zone"-type of television show, "Acres of Perhaps," is sheer genius. As the writer grieves for his lost love who has died of cancer after 50 years together, he remembers the 60s and the two other writers for the show, one of whom believed he was living in an alternate universe. The story is a loving homage to rural America, 1960's science fiction and two great romances. Ludwigsen is an award wining author and this story demonstrates why.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)

This year's anthology is certainly the best of the best. World class writers and award winning stories that capture your imagination throughout.

This is my last year for this anthology. I have read it for several years running, and on the whole I find the stories mediocre and not clever or suspenseful or surprising. This year's anthology had a few good stories near the beginning, then it peters out and doesn't get its steam back again.

Many of the stories in this anthology appeared in other anthologies, and so you are forced either to re-read these stories or to skip them. What that means is that you end up skipping a third of the stories in the book, so the book is not a good value for your money. Mediocre stories and poor value=get the axe.

I will turn instead to Paula Guran's "The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 20XX" for a different kind of storytelling!

I find it really irritating. Why can I not just give it stars? Why do you you force us to describe our motivation as to why we like or dislike a book? I am all for supporting writers by rating how much I enjoyed a book, but why do I have to explain myself every time I finish reading just to be able to say I enjoyed it!

I would appreciate it if someone could explain this to me, for the writers probably do not benefit from me just writing in "good" to have my opinion count.

I have to get my Sci Fi fix with little time to read. This hits the spot with small chunks of yummy Sci Fi delight each time I pick it up.

Liked some a lot. Others were ok, and some I just skimmed past. Kind of how you might expect. Overall, satisfied.

I am a SF traditionalist. Being stuck on this planet is difficult enough...I'd just like to read some engaging rather traditional SF at night before having to go into the hibernation that you humans call sleep. Unfortunately, find good SF is getting much haeder and harder to find. These stories are just of fairly mindless people running around without much sense or tech or science. Fiction it is but I would not call this SCIENCE fiction because there is so little of it in this book. Very sad. You humans appear to be degrading much faster then the most pessimistic projections from the stranding date. At this rate, few if any of you will actualy get off the planet. And you want us to come and SAVE you? From yourselves? Please write better...REAL...SF...You know...Something smart and sophisticated aliens will be impressed with! Remember that you are quarrantined. And poor SF only enforces that...

As always this is a very enjoyable collection. Looking forward to next years!

Ranging through time travel, space opera, humanoid adjustment to alien life, robotics to fairyland and a brilliant Ian McDonald's novella,

I have no idea as I brought it as a present for someone