If any of you know me, you know I don’t read as much science fiction as I do fantasy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love a good space or cyberpunk jaunt. I’m also interested in writing more science fiction of my own, and what better way to do that than with a contest motivator?

Enter The Jim Baen Memorial Award: The First Decade. It is a collection of winning short stories from the Jim Baen Memorial Award contest that William Ledbetter and Baen Books host every year, in honor of positive science fiction and the late and great Jim Baen.

I’ll be enjoying, then studying, these stories over the next few weeks, so expect at least a few posts about it, including a review of the book overall. I’m impressed with what little I’ve skimmed so far. I regret to say I don’t recognize many of the names off the bat (Again, not really the genre I’ve spent much time reading in recent years), but I do recognize Brad Torgerson. I loved The Chaplain’s War, so I’ve high hopes for his short story “Gemini XVII.”