"This volume showcases the nuanced, playful, ever-expanding definitions of the genre and celebrates its current renaissance." --Washington Post Science fiction and fantasy can encompass so much, from far-future deep-space sagas to quiet contemporary tales to unreal kingdoms and beasts. But what the best of these stories do is the same across the genres--they illuminate the whole gamut of the human experience, interrogating our hopes and our fears. With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Charles Yu, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 continues to explore the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today, with Yu bringing his unique view--literary, meta, and adventurous--to the series' third edition.

Peter S. Beagle is the author of the beloved fantasy classic The Last Unicorn. Now, with Janet Berliner, he has gathered fantastic tales of unicorns combined with the theme of immortality by of the finest writers in the genre, including Karen Joy Fowler, Charles de Lint, Ellen Kushner, Tad Williams, Robert Sheckley, Dave Wolverton, and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. New in this edition is Julie's Unicorn, a story written especially for the anthology Beagle himself. Each tale celebrates the myth and mystery of one of fantasy's most enduring, and bestselling, subjects: unicorns!

While attending the revels of the League for Archaic Pleasurs, a group dedicated to the pleasures of the medieval period, Joe Farrell comes face-to-face with Nicholas Bonner, a spirit from the past and an ancient evil.

The spirit of a man named Sam, who died unexpectedly, inhabits the body of his beloved cat and communicates with his best friend, Jacob, and the woman he loved, Emilia.