Engineering Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan ★★★★

An anthology of hard science fiction from a variety of authors, from veterans like Gregory Benford to newcomers like Hannu Rajaniemi. The settings vary from the very near future of Peter Watts’ “Malak” (applying a very interesting if-this-goes-on to drone warfare in Afghanistan) to the very far future of David Moles’ “A Soldier of the City”. Charles Stross’ “Bit Rot” will be of interest to people who enjoyed his novel Saturn’s Children— it takes place centuries down the line from the events of that book (and manages to put a high-tech twist on the popular phenomenon of zombies [spoiler, highlight to read]). Overall, a good look at the current state of hard sf writing.