An excellent anthology collection spotlighting the best hard science fiction stories published in 2019 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. Once again offering a definitive and incisive exploration of science fiction themes, trends, and traditions to delight the discernig science fiction reader.Contents: * Soft Edges Elizabeth Bear: a coastal restoration researcher can help the police solve a murder but is conflicted over the unjust nature of the criminal justice system. * By the Warmth of Their Calculus Tobias S. Buckell, the captain of a dustship musters her crew to escape from a trap set by Hunter-Killers in a game of cat and mouse amid the rings of a giant planet. * A Mate Not a Meal Sarina Dorie: an arachnipede becomes wary of potential mates after she sees a male eat her mother . . . but she's lonely. * The Slipway Greg Egan, astronomers are hard-pressed to explain what appears to be a new cluster of stars that's growing by the hour. * This is Not the Way Home Greg Egan; abandoned at a lunar base after losing radio contact with Earth, a newlywed traverses the moon in a buggy with her newborn toward a skyhook on the farside. * Cloud-Born Gregory Feeley: children born on a ship from Earth become anxious as they begin to transition to their new lives as colonists of Neptune. * On the Shores of Ligeia Carolyn Ives Gilman: an astrobiology postdoc is called at the last minute to remotely navigate a robot searching for hydrogen-based life on Titan. * Ring Wave Tom Jolly: an engineer in a life pod is desperate to join a colony in space after an asteroid destroys Earth. * The Little Shepherdess Gwyneth Jones: a deep-sea mining company's operation is threatened by a crustacean scientist. * Sacrificial Iron Ted Kosmatka, a decades long mission to another star is threatened when the two men keeping watch over a frozen crew turn on each other. * The Menace from Farside Ian McDonald: a teenager seeks to maintain her and "Captain and " status among her non-traditional lunar family by leading her siblings on a dangerous trek to Neil Armstrong's first footprint on the moon. * The Ocean Between the Leaves Ray Nayler: the mind of a dying gardener is transferred to another body for three days of closure in a state-run experiment. * At the Fall Alec Nevala-Lee: a robot strives to maintain its energy reserves as it crosses thousands of kilometers underwater to find its way home. * Winter Wheat Gord Sellar: a Canadian farmer and his son are at odds on how to cope with a powerful agribusiness promoting its genetically modified wheat. * Cyclopterus Peter Watts: a resentful submarine pilot is ordered to an undersea research facility to assist with the mining survey of a formerly protected seabed..