The Year’s Best Military SF & Space Opera

PREFACE

by David Afsharirad

EVERY FEW YEARS
some arts reporter or Respected Author™ comes along and writes an opinion piece declaring the short story either dead or dying. And we fall for it every time. News outlets around the country and on the Web bemoan the decline (and eventual death) of that once-lauded American form. You’d think that the regularity with which this particular article (and it
is
the same article, no matter who writes it) circulates would tip us to the dubious nature of these claims. But each time at least some of us are certain that
this
will be the time. That, sure, we were wrong before, but
now?
Now the short story really is on its last legs.

Perhaps this is true in literary fiction, though last I checked Tobias Wolff was still in top form and publishing regularly. And it may well be that that rarest of birds, the mainstream short story, is on the endangered species list, though George Saunders’
Tenth of December
debuted at #3 on
The New York Times
hardcover bestseller list in 2013, and if that’s not mainstream, I don’t know what is. It’s an indisputable fact that there’s not much short fiction being published in the Western genre these days . . . but that can’t be what they’re talking about, right?

Regardless, one place that the rumors of the short story’s death have always been
wildly
exaggerated is in the field of science fiction. True, we may no longer live in the times when science fiction pulps clogged the corner newsstand, but any arts reporter or Respected Author™, no matter how jaded, would be hard pressed to look around at the various print magazines, online outlets, and original anthologies published every year and declare that the science fiction short story is in anything but excellent health. A hale and hearty beast it is!

Science fiction was born in the pulps, and existed in short story (or novelette or novella) form for years before moving to the novel. Yes, there were exceptions to this (
Frankenstein
and
the works of Jules Verne and the scientific romances of H.G. Wells—please do not write me letters listing science fiction novels to prove me wrong). And true, science fiction novels were being serialized in those same pulps almost from the get-go. But even still, the history of science fiction as we know it today is largely a history of its best short stories. More than any other genre, SF is defined by its greatest short fiction.

Golden Age writers like Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein paved the way for excellence in short SF in the pages of John W. Campbell’s
Astounding
. And it was Heinlein and Bradbury who brought science fiction (some would say kicking and screaming) into the mainstream by selling their short stories to “slick” magazines like
The Saturday Evening Post
,
Mademoiselle
, and
Collier’s
.

By the 1960s, the Golden Age was over—but not so the era of top quality short science fiction. The New Wave continued the short story tradition, with authors such as Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, and James Tiptree, Jr. bringing new perspectives to the genre. The New Wave, like the Golden Age before it, grew out of a short story tradition, with most tracing the beginning of the movement to the British magazine
New Worlds
, edited by Michael Moorcock. Today, when seminal works of the New Wave are discussed, it is not a novel that is most often first mentioned, but Harlan Ellison’s groundbreaking anthology
Dangerous Visions
. (This then leads to mentioning
Again Dangerous Visions
, which leads to complaints about
The Last Dangerous Visions
, the most famous unreleased short story anthology of all time, I think it’s fair to say.)

But during this same era, publishing was changing. The paperback was outpacing the magazines, and science fiction writers turned to the novel format to explore the stories they wanted to tell. (If I had to put money on it, I’d wager that this is when the first of those “The Short Story is Dying” articles started circulating.) But the SF magazines held on while so many other fiction periodicals fizzled. (The big three,
Asimov’s
,
Analog
, and
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
, are still going strong today; you’ll find stories from each between the covers of this book.) And new anthologies edited by the likes of Groff Conklin helped short SF transition to the new paperback format.

But what about today?

“I just read an article saying that the short story is dying,” you say because you have not been paying attention to what I’ve written. Or perhaps you have been paying attention but don’t believe me because the article you read was by a Respected Author™ and I am just a lowly editor.

Well, ignore him, I say! The science fiction short story is not dead, is not dying, and—dare I say it?—will never die. If anything, sitting in the second decade of the 21st century, we’re spoiled for choice. Look around the internet and you’ll find dozens of outlets for science fiction short stories. Numerous original anthologies are brought out every year, by both small presses and big publishing houses. And, as mentioned, the venerable digests are still around and putting out quality stories, month after month. They are joined by other print magazines that are younger but of no less quality.

In fact, with so much short science fiction being published every week/month/year, it can be hard to sort the good from the bad, the excellent from the not-for-me-thanks. Sadly, Sturgeon’s Law still applies in the science-fictional-sounding 21st century. I fear, like the cockroach, it shall always be with us. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Sturgeon’s Law states, “ninety percent of science fiction is crap.” (The corollary, “but so is ninety percent of everything” is useful to remember.)

And in that ten percent of quality (or at least non-crap) science fiction, there are going to be stories that don’t appeal to certain readers. A story that changes one person’s life causes another to fling the book across the room. Sometimes you want an obscure, mind-bending piece of flash fiction with an ambiguous ending (or at least I do; maybe I’m weird), but other times you want some good old-fashioned space opera. You want a story of military derring-do. You want a tale that makes you feel like a kid again, reading Edgar Rice Burroughs under the covers after you were supposed to be asleep. A well-written story that makes you think, yes—but that also lets its hair down and has some fun. A story with a beginning, middle, and end, by God!

For example: How about a private eye on the trail of a conspiracy on the lush jungle Venus we wanted, not the poisonous uninhabitable Venus we got? Or a man bent on beating a robot to the last untouched hunk of rock in the solar system? Or how about an ice miner determined to throw off the shackles of a repressive corporation and write his own destiny? Or a young Warrant Officer tasked with defending a planet from an insectoid alien menace?

“Do these stories, and stories like them, still exist?” you ask. “And if so, where can I find them?”

I’m glad you asked.

They do still exist, and in great number. Where can you find them? All over. I don’t think that there was a single anthology or magazine, whether online or in print, that I read last year that didn’t include at least some of this type of story.

So, you could go out, like I did, and read (or at least skim) everything you can get your hands on—
Asimov’s, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Analog,
every themed and tribute anthology out there, every single-author collection, every ebook exclusive, et cetera—separating the wheat from the chaff and finding the stories that speak to you.

Or, you could do what you’ve already done and buy
Year’s Best Military Science Fiction and Space Opera
. (If you are reading this in the bookstore, please don’t crease the spine until you do buy the book—and you
will
want to buy the book.) Herein, submitted for your approval and for your reading pleasure, are the most thrilling, pulse-pounding, and thought-provoking stories of the past year. Stories of future military men and women, space opera on a grand scale, and edge-of-your-seat adventure tales in the pulp tradition. Stories that prove that the short story isn’t dead, isn’t dying, and that the Golden Age of the science fiction short story is the ever-present now.

Excelsior!

—David Afsharirad

Austin, TX

February, 2015

Oh, just one more thing:

I can’t promise that you’ll love every story in this book. Some will strike you as better than others. Such is the subjective nature of taste. I’ve got my favorites (and wouldn’t you like to know what they are!), and you’ll have yours. And I’m curious, after you put the book down, what story did
you
consider worthy of the superlative of this volume’s title? Which of these fifteen tales really was the year’s best?

Luckily, I won’t have to wonder for long; you’re going to tell me. Baen Books is giving you the opportunity to get in on the action. That’s right:
you
pick The Year’s Best Military Science Fiction and Space Opera Story.

To find out how you can cast your vote, go to http://www.baen.com/yearsbestaward2014. But don’t hesitate! Voting closes August 31, 2015. (If you are reading this in some distant future, I apologize that it’s too late for you to weigh in on this year’s award. Also, are flying cars and personal jetpacks a thing yet, or are we still waiting?)

The winner will be announced at DragonCon in September and will receive a cash prize and a plaque.

Pleasant reading and happy voting.

—DA