Table of Conundrums

A month or so back, we announced the table of contents for Best of British Science Fiction on social media. I'm afraid I didn't get round to writing a post here.

We don't announce the ToC until all contracts are back, just in case anything might befall the selected stories affecting our choices. It is a process that has worked quite well up to now.

I also have a policy of not picking more than two stories from one source, and just one where possible. We hope to bring some attention and, dare I say it, a bit of kudos to the original publications. It's not the only consideration we have as far as balance is concerned but it also helps with getting a good variety of stories and mitigating risk should the author not have permission to reproduce their story from one particular publication. As I say, it has worked well for us up to now, but this year we unfortunately lost two stories we had selected because the rights to the stories were slightly more complicated and weren't owned by the publisher or authors. Alas, these things happen. The stories were written for the Creative Futures Research Project, a partnership between Coventry University and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), the UK Ministry of Defence’s science and technology organisation. Please do buy and savour Creative Futures from Flame Tree Press. All of the stories are fantastic, and Allen Stroud has done an amazing editorial job. Also, it will look very nice on your bookshelf as the Flame Tree books are so pretty.

The two stories we could not include were "Apprehension Sands" by Gareth L. Powell and "100kg of Platinum in London" by Stewart Hotston. Gareth's reputation as a solid, multi-award-winning writer of exciting speculative fiction is probably known to you, but if you don't know Stewart, he is making waves as a newer novelist with Project Hanuman, published last year and gathering great reviews and nominations.

Fortunately, another of Gareth's stories had made my shortlist, so we will be able to include "An Examination of the Trolley Problem Using a Sentient Warship and a Rotating Black Hole" instead. I'd been really torn between these stories. Little did I know I'd be able to pick both!

Sadly, Stewart misses out. However, we are replacing his story in the Table of Contents with not one, but two stories. "The Time Traveller's Husbands" by Garry Kilworth and "Merlin's Hole" by Allen Ashley.

Conundrum solved!

Best of British Science Fiction 2025 is available to pre-order now from the NewCon Press site. And it looks like this:













Contents:
Introduction – Donna Scott
An Examination of the Trolley Problem Using a Sentient Warship
and a Rotating Black Hole – Gareth L Powell
The Swap – Lavie Tidhar
The Flaming Embusen – Tade Thompson
Last Gasp – Stark Holborn
The Time Traveller’s Husbands – Garry Kilworth
On the Night Shift – Zohar Jacobs
The Walled Garden – Fiona Moore
Alba and the Great Crystal – Eric Brown and Keith Brooke
Coriander – Ana Sun
Dark Matter – Caitriana NicNeacail
Hand of Fire – E.M. Faulds
Four Fabrications of Francine Descartes – Tim Major
Going Out on a Limb – David Cleden
The Big Outside – Anne Charnock
Twin Engines – Lyle Hopwood
One by One – Lindz McLeod
My Vagus Proxy – Stephen Oram
Bone-eater Earth – Emma Burnett
To Reap, To Sow – Lyndsey Croal
Wheat Futures – Vaughan Stanger
Merlin’s Hole – Allen Ashley
About the Authors