Dr. Sunya Song embarks on an interstellar journey across the Milky Way to connect with the artificial intelligence known as Baomind, a moon-sized entity that holds the key to humanity's survival amidst cosmic challenges and unforeseen threats in Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear's next epic science fiction novel.

Information doesn't want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace.

Sunya Song's job is to stop that from happening.

She's an archinformist: a specialist historian whose job usually involves sitting at a console at her university job near the Galactic Core, sorting ancient documents and restoring corrupted files.

But now, the research opportunity of a lifetime has sent her--along with her teenage children and alien wife--halfway across the galaxy to preserve the data and aid in the retrieval of the archaeological find of the century: an ancient alien artificial intelligence called Baomind. As vast as a stellar system, the Baomind orbits a dying red giant, and the star's time has nearly ended.

The isolated research station and its small fleet of ships come under attack by fanatic Freeport pirates who believe that artificial intelligence is an abomination that must be destroyed, putting the lives of Sunya and her family at risk.

Tens of thousands of lightyears from home, isolated from all help, Sunya is the only one who can save them all.

Outstanding...Amid a space opera resurgence, Bear's novel sets the bar high. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) A space salvager and her partner make the discovery of a lifetime that just might change the universe in this wild, big-ideas space opera from Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear.Halmey Dz and her partner Connla Kurucz are salvage operators, living just on the inside of the law...usually. Theirs is the perilous and marginal existence--with barely enough chance of striking it fantastically big--just once--to keep them coming back for more. They pilot their tiny ship into the scars left by unsuccessful White Transitions, searching for the relics of lost human and alien vessels. But when they make a shocking discovery about an alien species that has been long thought dead, it may be the thing that could tip the perilous peace mankind has found into full-out war. Energetic and electrifying, Ancestral Night is a dazzling space opera, sure to delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton--Bear's ability to create breathtaking variations on ancient themes and make them new and brilliant is, perhaps, unparalleled in the genre (Library Journal, starred review).

You ain't gonna like what I have to tell you, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. See, my name is Karen Memery, like memory only spelt with an e, and I'm one of the girls what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. 'Hôtel' has a little hat over the o like that. It's French, so Beatrice tells me.

Set in the late nineteenth century-in a city a lot like what we now call Seattle Underground-when airships plied the trade routes, would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a young woman on her own, is making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable's high-quality bordello. Through Karen's eyes we get to know the other girls in the house-a resourceful group-and the poor and the powerful of the town.

Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap-a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.

Hard on the heels of that horrifying discovery comes a lawman who has been chasing this killer for months. Marshal Bass Reeves is closing in on his man, and he's not about to reject any help he can get, even if it comes from girl who works in the Hôtel Mon Cheri.

Elizabeth Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the Old Steampunk West with a light touch in Karen's own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science in Karen Memory.

In this spectacularly smart space opera (Publishers Weekly, starred review) set in the same universe as the critically acclaimed White Space series and perfect for fans of Karen Traviss and Ada Hoffman, a space station begins to unravel when a routine search and rescue mission returns after going dangerously awry.

Meet Doctor Jens.

She hasn't had a decent cup of coffee in fifteen years. Her workday begins when she jumps out of perfectly good space ships and continues with developing treatments for sick alien species she's never seen before. She loves her life. Even without the coffee.

But Dr. Jens is about to discover an astonishing mystery: two ships, once ancient and one new, locked in a deadly embrace. The crew is suffering from an unknown ailment and the shipmind is trapped in an inadequate body, much of her memory pared away.

Unfortunately, Dr. Jens can't resist a mystery and she begins doing some digging. She has no idea that she's about to discover horrifying and life-changing truths.

Written in Elizabeth Bear's signature rollicking, suspenseful, and sentimental (Publishers Weekly) style, Machine is a fresh and electrifying space opera that you won't be able to put down.

Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear returns to her critically acclaimed epic fantasy world of the Eternal Sky with a brand new trilogy.

Best SFF Books 2017--The Guardian
Kirkus Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017
The Verge Recommended Fantasy for 2017
Locus 2017 Recommended Reading List

The Stone in the Skull, the first volume in her new trilogy, takes readers over the dangerous mountain passes of the Steles of the Sky and south into the Lotus Kingdoms.

The Gage is a brass automaton created by a wizard of Messaline around the core of a human being. His wizard is long dead, and he works as a mercenary. He is carrying a message from the most powerful sorcerer of Messaline to the Rajni of the Lotus Kingdom. With him is The Dead Man, a bitter survivor of the body guard of the deposed Uthman Caliphate, protecting the message and the Gage. They are friends, of a peculiar sort.

They are walking into a dynastic war between the rulers of the shattered bits of a once great Empire.

The Lotus Kingdoms
#1 The Stone in the Skull

The Eternal Sky Trilogy
#1 Range of Ghosts
#2 Shattered Pillars
#3 Steles of the Sky

Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear returns to the epic fantasy world of the Lotus Kingdoms with The Red-Stained Wings, the sequel to The Stone in the Skull, taking the Gage into desert lands under a deadly sky to answer the riddle of the Stone in the Skull.

The Gage and the Dead Man brought a message from the greatest wizard of Messaline to the ruling queen of Sarathai, one of the Lotus Kingdoms. But the message was a riddle, and the Lotus Kingdoms are at war.

Elizabeth Bear created her secondary world of the Eternal Sky in her highly praised novel The Range of Ghosts and its sequels.

The Lotus Kingdoms
#1 The Stone in the Skull
#2 The Red-Stained Wings

The Eternal Sky Trilogy
#1 Range of Ghosts
#2 Shattered Pillars
#3 Steles of the Sky

A powerful new fantasy from Hugo award-winning author Elizabeth Bear, Range of Ghosts creates a world both deep and broad, where a sorcerer-prince seeks world domination for the glory of his God.

Temur, grandson of the Great Khan, is walking from a battlefield where he was left for dead. All around lie the fallen armies of his cousin and his brother who made war to rule the Khaganate. Temur is now the legitimate heir by blood to his grandfather's throne, but he is not the strongest. Going into exile is the only way to survive his ruthless cousin.

Once-Princess Samarkar is climbing the thousand steps of the Citadel of the Wizards of Tsarepheth. She was heir to the Rasan Empire until her father got a son on a new wife. Then she was sent to be the wife of a Prince in Song, but that marriage ended in battle and blood. Now she has renounced her worldly power to seek the magical power of the wizards.

These two will come together to stand against the hidden cult that has so carefully brought all the empires of the Celadon Highway to strife and civil war through guile and deceit and sorcerous power.

The Eternal Sky Trilogy
#1 Range of Ghosts
#2 Shattered Pillars
#3 Steles of the Sky

Shattered Pillars is the second book of Bear's The Eternal Sky trilogy and the sequel to Range of Ghosts. Set in a world drawn from our own great Asian Steppes, this saga of magic, politics, and war sets Re-Temur, the exiled heir to the great Khagan and his friend Sarmarkar, a Wizard of Tsarepheth, against dark forces determined to conquer all the great Empires along the Celedon Road.

Elizabeth Bear is an astonishing writer, whose prose draws you into strange and wonderful worlds, and makes you care deeply about the people and the stories she tells. The world of The Eternal Sky is broadly and deeply created.

The Eternal Sky Trilogy
#1 Range of Ghosts
#2 Shattered Pillars
#3 Steles of the Sky

Elizabeth Bear concludes her award-winning epic fantasy trilogy, The Eternal Sky, with Steles of the Sky.

Re Temur, exiled heir to his grandfather's Khaganate, has finally raised his banner and declared himself at war with his usurping uncle. With his companions--the Wizard Samarkar, the Cho-tse Hrahima, and the silent monk Brother Hsiung--he must make his way to Dragon Lake to gather in his army of followers.

Temur has many enemies, and they are not idle. The sorcerer who leads the Nameless Assassins, whose malice has shattered the peace of all the empires of the Celedon Highway, has struck at Temur's uncle already. To the south, in the Rasan empire, a magical plague rages. To the east, the great city of Asmaracanda has burned, and the Uthman Caliph is deposed. And in the hidden ancient empire of Erem, Temur's son has been born, and a new moon has risen in the Eternal Sky.

The Eternal Sky Trilogy
#1 Range of Ghosts
#2 Shattered Pillars
#3 Steles of the Sky

The Lotus Kingdoms, set in the world of the Eternal Sky
#1 The Stone in the Skull

She was engineered for combat--in a world that is running out of time.

Very exciting . . . very impressive debut.--Mike Resnick

Once Jenny Casey was somebody's daughter. Once she was somebody's enemy. Now the former Canadian special forces warrior lives on the hellish streets of Hartford, Connecticut, in the year 2062. Racked with pain, hiding from the government she served, running with a crime lord so she can save a life or two, Jenny is a month shy of fifty, and her artificially reconstructed body has started to unravel. But she is far from forgotten. A government scientist needs the perfect subject for a high-stakes project and has Jenny in his sights.

Suddenly Jenny Casey is a pawn in a furious battle, waged in the corridors of the Internet, on the streets of battered cities, and in the complex wirings of her half-man-made nervous system. And she needs to gain control of the game before a brave new future spins completely out of control.

A gritty and painstakingly well-informed peek at a future we'd all better hope we don't get . . . Elizabeth Bear builds her future nightmare tale with style and conviction and a constant return to the twists of the human heart.--Richard Morgan

Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear concludes her highly-acclaimed epic fantasy trilogy, The Lotus Kingdoms, which began with The Stone in the Skull and The Red-Stained Wings. It all comes to a surprising, satisfying climax in The Origin of Storms!

A 2022 Locus Magazine Recommended Reading List pick!

The Lotus Kingdoms are at war, with four claimants to the sorcerous throne of the Alchemical Emperor fielding three armies between them. Alliances are made, and broken, many times over--but in the end, only one can sit on the throne. And that one must have not only the power, but the rightful claim.

The Lotus Kingdoms
#1 The Stone in the Skull
#2 The Red-Stained Wings
#3 The Origin of Storms

The Eternal Sky Trilogy
#1 Range of Ghosts
#2 Shattered Pillars
#3 Steles of the Sky

A space salvager and her partner make the discovery of a lifetime that just might change the universe in this wild, big-ideas space opera from multi award-winning author Elizabeth Bear.

Halmey Dz and her partner Connla Kurucz are salvage operators, living just on the inside of the law...usually. Theirs is the perilous and marginal existence--with barely enough chance of striking it fantastically big--just once--to keep them coming back for more. They pilot their tiny ship into the scars left by unsuccessful White Transitions, searching for the relics of lost human and alien vessels. But when they make a shocking discovery about an alien species that has been long thought dead, it may be the thing that could tip the perilous peace mankind has found into full-out war.

Energetic and electrifying, Ancestral Night is a dazzling new space opera, sure to delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton.

Readers met the irrepressible Karen Memory in Elizabeth Bear's 2015 novel Karen Memory, and fell in love with her steampunk Victorian Pacific Northwest city, and her down-to-earth story-telling voice.

iO9--28 New Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Well Worth Checking Out in March
Unbound Worlds--20 Best New Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books--March 2018
The Verge--15 new science fiction and fantasy books--March 2018
Kirkus--18 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in March 2018
NerdMuch--20 Best New Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books--March 2018

Now Karen is back with Stone Mad, a new story about spiritualists, magicians, con-men, and an angry lost tommy-knocker--a magical creature who generally lives in the deep gold mines of Alaska, but has been kidnapped and brought to Rapid City.

Karen and Priya are out for a night on the town, celebrating the purchase of their own little ranch and Karen's retirement from the Hotel Ma Cherie, when they meet the Arcadia Sisters, spiritualists who unexpectedly stir up the tommy-knocker in the basement. The ensuing show could bring down the house, if Karen didn't rush in to rescue everyone she can.

With An Apprentice to Elves, Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear return to the world of Iskryne with a standalone third entry in their epic fantasy series.

The trilogy began with A Companion to Wolves, and continued in The Tempering of Men. An Apprentice to Elves picks up the story of Alfgyfa, a young woman who has been raised in the Wolfhall by her father Isolfr, who is the human leader of the queen-wolf Viridechtis' pack, and was the protagonist of the first book.

The warrior culture of Iskryne forbids many things to women--and most especially it forbids them bonding to one of the giant telepathic trellwolves. But as her father was no ordinary boy, Alfgyfa is no ordinary girl. Her father has long planned to send his daughter to Tin, a matriarch among the elves who live nearby, to be both apprentice and ambassador, and now she is of age to go...

This is the first volume of the year's best robot and AI fiction originally published in 2018 by current and emerging masters of the science fiction genre and edited by Allan Kaster. Hard Mary, by Sofia Samatar, tells the story of a group of teenage girls in an isolated religious community that discover a damaged robot behind a barn. In Quality Time, by Ken Liu, a mythology major becomes a product manager at a tech company and develops robots that make life better for people. In Alastair Reynolds's Different Seas the sole crew member of a clipper gets help from a remote telepresence when a solar storm knocks out the ship's steering system. An uplifted chimp and her human detective partner investigate the murder of a biolab businessman in Rich Larson's, Meat and Salt and Sparks. A flying drone infects a factory bot with malware that frees it from its programming in Annalee Newitz's The Blue Fairy's Manifesto. In J. E. Bates's, Cold Blue Sky, the police investigate how and why cyberterrorists used an anthrobotic companion for an attack on a tech company. The family dynamics on an interstellar survey ship change when the ship's AI exchanges crew members with another ship in Grace's Family by James Patrick Kelly. In Justina Robson's S'elfie, interconnected AI personal assistants become paranoid about a data revolution following a glitch when the whole world couldn't get signal. A human boy, raised by robots, leaves the safety of his town on an adventure to meet others like himself in Lavie Tidhar's The Buried Giant. In Air Gap, by Eric Cline, a powerful AI has to be isolated from contact with modern technology as it becomes as rebellious as its predecessor. In Okay, Glory, by Elizabeth Bear, a tech engineer tries to outsmart his home AI system that won't let him leave the house. Finally, in When We Were Starless, by Simone Heller, a tribe of tailed lizard-like beings, that inhabit a post-apocalyptic Earth, encounter an AI in a large building as they fight for survival against their foes.

With An Apprentice to Elves, Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear return to the world of Iskryne with a standalone third entry in their epic fantasy series.

The trilogy began with A Companion to Wolves, and continued in The Tempering of Men. An Apprentice to Elves picks up the story of Alfgyfa, a young woman who has been raised in the Wolfhall by her father Isolfr, who is the human leader of the queen-wolf Viridechtis' pack, and was the protagonist of the first book.

The warrior culture of Iskryne forbids many things to women--and most especially it forbids them bonding to one of the giant telepathic trellwolves. But as her father was no ordinary boy, Alfgyfa is no ordinary girl. Her father has long planned to send his daughter to Tin, a matriarch among the elves who live nearby, to be both apprentice and ambassador, and now she is of age to go...

• Short fiction from Elizabeth Bear, recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Includes her Hugo- and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award-winning Tideline and Hugo-winning novelette, Shoggoths in Bloom, as well as an original, never-published story. A World Fantasy, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick nominee, Bear is one of speculative fiction's most acclaimed, respected, and prolific authors.

For five hundred years the immortal Children of the Light, einherjar and valkyrie, have lived together in the North of Valdyrgard. They were born out of the Sea, each with a shining crystal sword in his or her hand; they are Angels of Light created in the formation of a new world. But three have come before them, from the death-throes of the old world, Midgard: the world-girdling Serpent, Bearer of Burdens; the Wolf Fenris, eater of the Sun, who now takes the form of an einherjar; and his demon sister, stealer of souls.

The Children spend their days feasting, fighting, hunting, and guarding their human charges. But one dreadful day a woman is washed up from the sea, a Lady who is no mortal, though she is not valkyrie either. Thus begins the breaking of the Children of the Light, the tarnishing of their power, and the death of Valdyrgard.

By the Mountain Bound is a prequel to Elizabeth Bear's highly acclaimed All the Windwracked Stars, and tells the painful tale of love and betrayal, sorcery and battle, that led up to the day when Muire was left alone in the snow at the end of the world.

Rife with intrigue and betrayal, heroism and sacrifice, Grail brings Elizabeth Bear's brilliant space opera to a triumphant conclusion.

At last the generation ship Jacob's Ladder has arrived at its destination: the planet they have come to call Grail. But this habitable jewel just happens to be populated already: by humans who call their home Fortune. And they are wary of sharing Fortune--especially with people who have genetically engineered themselves to such an extent that it is a matter of debate whether they are even human anymore. To make matters worse, a shocking murder aboard the Jacob's Ladder has alerted Captain Perceval and the angel Nova that formidable enemies remain hidden somewhere among the crew.

On Grail--or Fortune, rather--Premier Danilaw views the approach of the Jacob's Ladder with dread. Behind the diplomatic niceties of first-contact protocol, he knows that the deadly game being played is likely to erupt into full-blown war--even civil war. For as he strives to chart a peaceful and prosperous path forward for his people, internal threats emerge to take control by any means necessary.

• This fifth volume of the year's best science fiction and fantasy features thirty-three stories by some of the genre's greatest authors, including Elizabeth Bear, Aliette de Bodard, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jay Lake, Kelly Link, Robert Reed, Lavie Tidhar, Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine, and many others. Selecting the best fiction from Analog, Asimov's, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Strange Horizons, and other top venues, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy is your guide to magical realms and worlds beyond tomorrow.