Analog magazine's best novella for 2024, plus 24 more stories
These are stories from across space and time and worlds from Martin L. Shoemaker, the best-selling author of The Last Dance, Today I Am Carey, Garden Paths, and the Maxwell's Demons series.Two engineers duel over a small town.An explorer strives to escape a dying spaceship.Assassins hunt a refugee on the Moon, with war in the balance.In a colorful land of imagination, a Gray Man tries to impose Sense.A mysterious stranger visits a man in times of danger.A man and his ghosts cross the country.A girl hires a dangerous man to get her off her planet.An evil wizard watches the forces of good storm his castle.A man meets his other selves-one of whom has been murdered An engineer is suspected of murder, but the truth is locked in his computer.Around a black hole, a misanthrope plans a better universe once he is in charge...A hairdresser finds herself deep inside an interplanetary conspiracy.A lawyer needs to get to court-but the ducks have other plans...A thief is enchanted by a man trapped inside a crystal ball.A political fixer on Mars discovers that humanity's rent is due.During a long night of work, a man loses control of existence.A scientist refuses to give up on her work, leading to the biggest secret in history.A security officer learns the secret of reality, if only he can grasp it.A secret agent leads an assault on a space station to stop a looming war.Can a man believe his future self?AI determined criminal remorselessly pursues his target inside the computer.An image analyst discovers a secret in space. Will it land him in the stockade?A therapist must find a lost boy in the ultimate amusement park.This dragon just wants to be left alone, but...A girl is visited by two spirits and offered three futures-if she has the courage to learn.In July 2025, Analog Science Fiction & Fact magazine announced that "Uncle Roy's Computer Repairs and Used Robot Parts" had been selected by their readers as the best novella of 2025 in their annual Analytical Laboratory awards (the AnLabs). Now you can read this award-winning story and 24 more. Some of these have appeared in Analog. Some have appeared in anthologies from Baen books and other publishers. And some are new to this volume What Martin L. Shoemaker promises readers is: Mystery. Wonder. Heart. And these stories deliver all three.