The Year's Top Hard Science Fiction Stories

An unabridged audio collection spotlighting the "best of the best" hard science fiction stories published in 2016 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster, as narrated by top voice talents. In "Vortex", by Gregory Benford, astronauts find a once thriving microbial lifeform that carpets the caves of Mars dying off. A code monkey tracks down the vain creator of a pernicious software virus that people jack cerebrally in "RedKing", by Craig DeLancey. In "Number Nine Moon", by Alex Irvine, illicit scavengers on Mars are on a rescue mission to save themselves after one of their team members dies. A young girl's thirst for vengeance becomes a struggle for survival when she is swallowed by a gigantic sea creature on an alien planet in "Of the Beast in the Belly", by C.W. Johnson. In "The Seventh Gamer", by Gwyneth Jones, a writer immerses herself into a MMORPG community to search for characters being played by real aliens from other worlds. A woman armed with a rifl