“You will come to Ulei with me?” he said, but he knew already. She
“I will come,” she said. “For a bit.”
Suddenly he felt a deep and powerful emotion in his chest: overwhelmed by everything that had happened or would happen in their lives: the changes to Nearside and Farside, the ferry’s ending, Valo’s death, the fact that she would leave him eventually, or that he would leave her. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m not,” she said, and leaned across to kiss him, her mouth warm with sunlight and life. “It is worth it, all of it.”
All those losses, but this one at least he could prevent.
“When the time comes,” he said: “When you sail. I will come with you,”
To be a leader, be a bridge.
Honorable Mentions: 2011
Daniel Abraham, “Balfour and Meriwether in
Brian W. Aldiss, “Benkoelen,”
Michael Alexander, “Someone Like You,”
Nina Allan, “The Silver Wind,”
Charlie Jane Anders, “Six Months, Three Days,” Tor.com.
_____, “Source Decay,”
Eleanor Arnason, “My Husband Steinn,”
Kage Baker, “Attlee and the Long Walk,”
Peter M. Ball, “Memories of Chalice,”
John Barnes, “The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees,”
Neal Barrett, Jr., “D.O.C.S.”
_____, “Where,”
Christopher Barzak, “Smoke City,”
Stephen Baxter, “Gravity Dreams,”
_____, “On Chryse Plain,”
_____, “Rock Day,”
_____, “Transients,”
Peter S. Beagle, “Music, When Soft Voices Die,”
_____, “Underbridge,”
Elizabeth Bear, “Gods of the Forge,”
_____, “King Pole, Gallows Pole, Bottle Tree,”
_____, “The Leavings of the Wolf,”
_____, “Needle,”
Chris Beckett, “Day 29,”
_____, “Two Thieves,”
Steve Bein, “The Most Important Thing in the World,”
Gregory Benford, “Eagle,”
_____, “Mercies,”
Holly Black, “Noble Rot,”
Richard Bowes, “Sir Morgravain Speaks of Night Dragons and Other Things,”
Marie Brennan, “Dancing the Warrior,”
_____, “Love, Cayce,”
Philip Brewer, “Watch Bees,”
Patricia Briggs, “In Red, with Pearls,”
Damien Broderick, “Time Considered as a Series of Thermite Burns in No Particular Order,” Tor.com.
_____& Barbara Lamarr, “Walls of Flesh, Bars of Bone,”
Keith Brooke, “Imago,”
_____& Eric Brown, “Eternity’s Children,”
Eric Brown, “Starship Winter,”
Tobias S. Buckell, “The Fall of Alacan,”
_____, “Mirror, Mirror,”
Emma Bull, “Nine Muses,”
Karl Bunker, “Bodyguard,”
_____, “Overtaken,”
_____, “Worm Days,”
Sue Burke, “Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise,”
Jim Butcher, “Curses,”
Pat Cadigan, “Picking Up the Pieces,”
Richard Calder, “Whisper,”
James L. Cambias, “Object Three,”
Tracy Canfield, “One-Eyed Jacks,”
Jeff Carlson, “Planet of the Sealies,”
Siobhan Carroll, “In the Gardens of the Night,”
Adam-Troy Castro, “Hiding Place,”
Jason Chapman, “The Architect of Heaven,”
_____, “This Petty Pace,”
Rob Chilson, “Less Stately Mansions,”
Gwendolyn Clare, “Ashes on the Water,”
Glen Cook, “Shadow Thieves,”
_____, “Smelling Danger: A Black Company Story,”
Matthew Cook, “Insha’allah,”
S. C. E. Cooney, “The Last Sophia,”
Albert E. Cowdrey, “The Black Mountain,”
_____, “The Bogle,”
_____, “How Peter Met Pan,”
_____, “Scatter My Ashes,”
_____, “Where Have All the Young Men Gone?”
Ian Creasey, “I Was Nearly Your Mother,”
_____, “The Odor of Sanctity,”
John Crowley, “And Go Like This,”
Leah Cypess, “Twelvers,”
Don D’Ammassa, “The Buddy System,”
