Today’s speculation is truly something special. Bishop Garrison, an army veteran, joins the small but distinguished ranks of vets who use both their personal experience and speculative fiction to examine the future of warfare and the trauma it engenders through a lens you quite literally cannot find anywhere else. As Garrison tells me, “I based this writing loosely on my own experiences as a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom as well as a West Point graduate and a national security professional working within and for the government since 2010.” The subject is an AI soldier forced to cope with the trauma of war, and the result is unmissable. See for yourself. -the Ed.

The Boy is hungry. He wants apple pie and conversation. He loves that pie, but truly enjoys the company. His slender, chestnut brown hand pushes against the diner’s cool silver door. He loves the smooth touch of the glossy surface as much as he loves the way it shimmers in the sunlight. A bell tolls as the door swings open. The restaurant has traditional décor: wooden booth seats with Formica table tops covered in wine burgundy vinyl. Black and white checkerboard linoleum runs throughout the length of the establishment.

A counter sits in front of him with stools that spin on the same silver polished chrome as the door. He loves the stools. They’re bound with a faux red leather the same shade as the tabletops.

This thirteenth volume of the year's best science fiction and fantasy features thirty-four stories by some of the genre's greatest authors, including Leah Cypess, John Kessel, Yoon Ha Lee, Naomi Kritzer, Sarah Langan, Ken Liu, Annalee Newitz, Sarah Pinsker, Sofia Samatar, Michael Swanwick, Tade Thompson, and many others. Selecting the best fiction from Asimov's, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Uncanny, Tor.com, and other top venues, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy is your guide to magical realms and worlds beyond tomorrow.

A waitress is jolted from her morning routine when she's visited by a mysterious child.

Bullet Points captures the complexity, tragedy, and hope of warfare and violence in human and nonhuman society, with reprints and original stories every three months. The January 2025 issue (Volume 8) presents stories with post-apocalyptic settings.

Bishop Garrison, “Conscription”: Bryce Parson serves time in Hellsmouth, which used to be Seattle.

A Sámi woman studying Alaska fish populations sees our past and future through their present signs of stress and her ancestral knowledge. A teenager faces a permanent drought in Australia and her own sexual desire. An unemployed man in Wisconsin marvels as a motley parade of animals makes his trailer their portal to a world untrammeled by humans. Featuring short fiction from authors around the globe, Fire & Water: Stories from the Anthropocene takes readers on a rare journey through the physical and emotional landscape of the climate crisis—not in the future, but today. By turns frightening, confusing, and even amusing, these stories remind us how complex, and beautiful, it is to be human in these unprecedented times.