A banner year for bold, provocative, brilliantly inventive science fiction has produced some of the most enthrallingly original short sf since the genre's conception. In their twelfth remarkable collection of the very best of the last twelve months, award-winning editors and anthologists David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer present amazing stories of galaxy-shaking events, alien contact, utopian science, and technology run amok--tales that celebrate the continually evolving literary artistry of some of the form's finest, most respected practitioners . . . while showcasing the magnificent talents of the science fiction superstars of the near future.