PREFACE
by David Afsharirad
A YEAR HAS PASSED since last we talked, and that means it’s time for another installment of The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF. Whether you’ve read the first two volumes in the series or are trying it out for the first time, within these pages you will find high quality, edge-of-your-seat science fiction stories with a military and adventure theme. Stories that challenge, provoke, thrill, and entertain. Stories like . . .
But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, let’s talk about The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF Readers’ Choice Award. Handed out each year at the Baen Traveling Roadshow at DragonCon, the Readers’ Choice Award is decided by an online poll. The table of contents of The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF serves as the ballot, and readers are encouraged to vote for their favorite story. That’s right, Baen asks you to pick the Year’s Best Military and Adventure Science Fiction story! The winner receives a handsome plaque and a $500 cash prize. To find out how to vote for in this year’s poll visit https://www.baen.com/yearsbestaward. But don’t hesitate—voting closes August 31, 2017.
So, who won last year? When making the announcement I said, “If you give out an award for military science fiction, you really shouldn’t be surprised when David Drake wins it.” The line drew thunderous applause, more for Drake than for my clever phrasing, I imagine.
And speaking of David Drake . . .
. . . his short story “Cadet Cruise” kicks off this year’s volume. This marks Drake’s third appearance in The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF. He was kind enough to write the introduction for our inaugural volume, and if you’ve read the paragraph above, you’ve no doubt deduced that his short story “Save What You Can” was included in last year’s book. That story took place in Drake’s genre-defining Hammer’s Slammers universe; “Cadet Cruise” is set in another of his long-running series. Readers of Drake’s popular RCN (Royal Cinnabar Navy) novels will recognize the intrepid Daniel Leary as the hero of our story, although this tale is set long before Leary rises through the ranks of the Royal Cinnabar Navy. As the title suggest, “Cadet Cruise” takes place at the beginning of Leary’s military career. Fans of the RCN novels will find much to enjoy in this prequel story, but I have no doubt that newcomers will find it every bit as engaging. When it comes to military SF stories, Drake knows how to write ’em!
And while we’re on the subject of past Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF Readers’ Choice Award winners, let’s discuss Michael Z. Williamson. Williamson was the winner of the award the very first time we handed it out all those years ago—way back in 2015. The story that won was called “Soft Casualty” and was set in his Freehold series, as is “Starhome,” which you will find here. In it, Jackson Burke is the leader of the smallest nation in space, a tiny asteroid known as Starhome. But when a war breaks out between Earth and the Freehold of Grainne, he’ll find that maintaining neutrality is easier said than done.
Also returning to the series this year is William Ledbetter with his short story “Tethers,” a white-knuckle disaster set in orbit around Earth. Ledbetter administers the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award contest; he’s also a Nebula Award nominee this year. (We’re pulling for you, Bill!) All that to say that he knows what makes a good short story and he sure as H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks knows how to write one.
And that’s all from the repeat offenders—er, alumni of past years. But not to worry, we’ve got a great crop of new recruits this year. Now, some of these “new recruits” have been writing top-notch SF for decades, but Volume 3 marks the first time any of them have appeared in Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF. They are:
Paul Di Filippo, who serves up a heaping helping of bio-punk in his short story “Backup Man.” It’s a hardboiled tale of a genetically engineered plague, a golden calf, and a land rush unlike any seen since the late 19th century. There’s also a sentient mushroom man in there, but I don’t want to spoil the fun.
Eric Del Carlo’s story also features bio-engineered humans, this time in a military setting. In “Unlinkage,” handlers are mentally linked to their Brutes—super-strong soldiers with limited intelligence—through a miracle of modern military science known as biomoss. Etta Pryor was a handler, her Brute a soldier named Conroy. But that was over a decade ago, and Conroy is dead. So why is she once again receiving signals from her biomoss?
From the Liaden Universe® comes “Wise Child” by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. Here you will find a tale of the corrupt Lyre Institute that enslaves humans and artificial intelligences alike; a man no longer willing to live in bondage, denied even the dignity of a name; and a starship with a heart of gold—and nerves of steel.
In “Sephine and the Leviathan” by Jack Schouten, a teenage girl must risk everything to save her twin brother. Set against the backdrop of an interstellar war between humanity and the alien Fractured, this harrowing tale of courage and determination will keep you in suspense until the very end.
With “The Last Tank Commander,” Allen Stroud brings us a story of a retired soldier who thought he had left the battlefield behind when he took to the stars. But when the colony ship on which he is a passenger touches down on an alien planet, he finds that war is universal.
David Adams’ “The Immortals: Anchorage” is intense military SF at its finest. When a band of mercenaries gets a job investigating the wreckage of a passenger liner, what they hope to find is Earthborn technology they can sell as salvage. What they do find is . . . something else entirely.
In “The Art of Failure” by Robert Dawson, a young xenolinguist with some serious debts to pay gets more than he bargained for when his ship makes first contact with an alien species.
Submitted for your approval: Michael Ezell’s story “The Good Food,” which takes us to a far-flung planet that two centuries of terraforming has transformed into a lush jungle world. But something is amiss, and it’s up to a former soldier, his K9 companion, and a smart-aleck AI to figure out what.
In a mind-bending tale of future warfare, Adam Roberts explores how weaponry might be much more unusual than the standard-issue raygun. The story is called “Between Nine and Eleven” and scores a perfect 10 in my book.
People love zombies—and zombies love people, but unfortunately not in the same way—and your faithful editor is no exception. Normally, I have to leave the zombies at the door when reading for Year’s Best, but not this time. In his Black Tide Rising series, John Ringo has created perhaps the most scientifically plausible explanation for zombies yet, situating the books firmly in the science fiction genre. Ringo has written four novels in the series to date, but readers wanted more, so Ringo and co-editor Gary Poole invited authors to play in John Ringo’s zombie sandbox (if that’s not a band name, it should be). The result was the anthology Black Tide Rising. From that collection of zombie tales comes Kacey Ezell’s “Not in Vain,” a story of a retired military helicopter pilot who now spends her days as a high school cheerleading coach—that is, until the zombie apocalypse breaks out. Give me a Z! Give me an O! Give me an M! Give me a B-I-E! What’s that spell?!?!?!?!
For a more personal apocalypse, we turn to “One Giant Leap” by Jay Werkheiser. The world may not be ending in this gripping tale, but it may well be “lights out” for our protagonist. A freak accident hurls Kent down through the poisonous atmosphere of Venus. As he descends toward the planet’s surface, his time is running out.
Finally, Baen publisher Toni Weisskopf has said that science fiction should be fun, and I couldn’t agree more. But I also think that science fiction can—nay, must!—serve a greater good. Here then we have a short story with a very serious warning about the dangers of temporal displacement. It’s called “If I Could Give this Time Machine Zero Stars, I Would,” coming courtesy of James Wesley Rogers by way of Alex Shvartsman’s Unidentified Funny Objects 5.
Earlier I said that there were no other returning writers from past years. That wasn’t entirely true. New York Times best-selling author of the Honor Harrington series David Weber has once again provided a stellar introduction. Normally I’d say that introductions to short story anthologies are skippable. Now, I can’t stop you from skipping over Mr. Weber’s intro, but I will say that I think this one is required reading for SF fans.
But enough from your humble editor.
Turn the page and discover the new Golden Age of science fiction.
Excelsior!
—David Afsharirad
Austin, TX
February, 2017