Something is rotten in the state of cybernetics.Elsinore Robotics is on the cusp of a breakthrough—the company is poised to create the first humanoid androids powered by true artificial intelligence. Their only rival, Norwegian Technologies, lost a publicly streamed contest between their flagship model, Fortinbras, and Elsinore's HAM(let) v.1.But when the first Hamlet model is found irreparably deactivated, the apparent victim of wild malware, the field of ...

The best short science fiction and fantasy published by authors from Aotearoa New Zealand in 2018, collected together for the first time.This inaugural edition of the Year's Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy brings together the very best short speculative fiction published by Kiwi authors in 2018.Explore worlds of hope and wonder, and worlds where hope and wonder are luxuries we wasted long ago; histories given new life, and futures you mi...

Mars is good place to reinvent yourself, isn't it?Jules Morales's life has always been a state of contact change. When the opportunity comes up, why not take a trip to Mars to work on the platinum mining operation—and make a load of money? But what if there is more to Mars than just a payday and an adventure?The woman now calling herself Lisa Marie has spent her whole life trapped by the struggle to make ends meet, and sometimes held hostage by her own memories. On...

Can home be a place you've never been, a place no one has ever been?The White Cloud is the most audacious experiment the human species has ever undertaken—to search for a new Earth. The ship and its crew exist for a solitary purpose—to reach a distant planet and establish a colony. However, the vast majority of people undertaking this journey will not live to see its result, nor were they part of the decision-making process to leave.A novel-in-stor...

Kaus wants nothing more than to be loved while its human counterpart, Raj Patel, believes fervently in freedom. Arkadia, one of four space stations circling Jupiter, was to be a refuge for all who fought the corrupt systems of old Earth, a haven where both humans and Artificial Intelligences could be happy and free. But the old prejudices and desires are still at play and, no matter how well-meaning its citizens, the children of Arkadia have tough compromises to make.When the futur...

Two dozen tales of far away worlds, future Earths, a reality that lives beside our own.From childhood dreams that haunt adulthood to alien creatures trapped in a never-ending cycle to visions of a future among the stars, the stories in this collection span the realms of the fantastic but with a core of humanity. You'll find hope in dystopia, despair in perfection and one or two bug-eyed aliens.Includes "Fire.Escape." (shortlisted for the Sir Julius Vogel aw...

The future is boring. Technology has solved the world's most pressing problems, leaving people with tedious work and mundane play. Jack is a Security Officer Class 5, which sounds important, but isn't. However, her banal life as a cubicle worker by day and tinkerer by night is interrupted when she discovers that her employer's computer system has been invaded.Jack enlists the help of her only friends - her co-worker, Gilles and Adrian, an online friend she's never met - to help her...

Storefronts busted, businesses destroyed, accounts frozen. No one knows who's behind the rash of vandalism in the virtual world, Marionette City, or how to protect themselves from becoming the next victim.Andersson Dexter has a new lease on life. Things are looking up for the newly independent investigator, when he picks up what seems like an ordinary case of vandalism.Soon Dex discovers that what appears to be a run of the mill case may be linked to a series of more sinist...

Accustomed to being an only child, adoptee Brian “Gumbo” Guillemot’s teenage hobby was searching for his birth parents. But when he finally finds his birth mother, Kim, he’s unprepared for the boisterous instant family that comes with her.Besides Kim, no one knows anything about Brian’s birth father. With Kim refusing to answer any questions about him, Brian must choose whether to continue the search, even if it means alienating his few friends and both his families. But the more h...

After settling into a new job, new home and new living arrangements, Andersson Dexter has finally found a comfortable life in both the physical and virtual worlds. But that sense of security is blown apart when an explosion rocks Dex's real-life Nice neighbourhood.He and his colleagues begin an investigation into a string of seemingly senseless and random vandalism attacks, that remind them all of similar assaults in the simulated world Marionette City. While at first the attacks s...

Tropical adventures. A rag-tag sailing crew. Running off-grid data servers? Sounds legit.Devi Jones is an intern for Really Remote Desktop, a cloud data storage company that keeps their servers in odd places, like the bilge of a hundred-foot sailboat called the Byte Bucket. Devi and the crew are crossing the Pacific — not bad for someone who'd never even stepped on a sailboat a month ago.Between rough weather, making peace with the rest of the crew...

Andersson Dexter is a new man, still living his old life.Part vigilante, part private eye, part cop, Dex is muddling his way through his day job as a faceless customer service rep for a giant firm, while solving routine cases in his off hours. But when a gruesomely mutilated corpse is found, things heat up for Dex and the underground organization he calls the Cubicle Men.Soon, Dex finds himself racing against the clock to find a killer who seems to be deter...