Best American
âShort stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,â writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. âThe most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.â The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises. Women canât lie or fall in love. Fathers feed their children ghost preserves. Souls chase one another through animal incarnations. Yet these stories are grounded deeply in our reality. Out of these storiesâ weirdness emerges the cruelty of border enforcement, the horror of legislation restricting reproductive freedom, the frightening pace of AI. The result is a stunning, immersive, intensely felt experience, showing us less of what the world is, and more of what it could be. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 includes Nathan Ballingrud âą KT Bryski âą Isabel Cañas âą Maria Dong âą Kim Fu âą Theodora Goss âą Alix E. Harrow âą S. L. Huang âą Stephen Graham Jones âą Shingai Njeri Kagunda âą Isabel J. Kim âą Samantha Mills âą MKRNYILGLD âą Malka Older âą Susan Palwick âą Linda Raquel Nieves PĂ©rez âą Sofia Samatar âą Kristina Ten âą Catherynne M. Valente âą Chris Willrich