"There were three Empresses of Mars. The first one was a bar at the Settlement. The second was the lady who ran the bar; though her title was strictly informal, having been bestowed on her by the regular customers, and her domain extended no further than the pleasantly gloomy walls of the only place you could get beer on the Tharsis Bulge. The third one was the Queen of England."

Growing up anywhere is hard, but it may be hardest of all on Mars. Bill is twelve Earth years old. He was the third boy born on the red planet. Ford is six Mars years old. He was the second. Alternate ways of tracking time are just one of the differences between their family lives. Bill lives with his dad in the cab of a Hauler, making endless runs between the colonies at Olympus Mons and the polar ice caps, bringing back desperately needed water. Ford spends his days mucking out stalls on his family’s farm allotment beneath the tented red sky. Though they’ve never met, the boys envy each other’s lives. Bill longs for stability. Ford wants adventure. Neither gets exactly what they’re looking for when an unexpected turn of events finds Ford taking refuge with Bill and his dad on one of their long-distance trips. When tragedy strikes, the boys must find a way to work together, thousands of miles from help and challenged by faulty equipment, savage storms, and untrustworthy adults. Even if they survive, they still have the biggest challenge of all ahead of the future. This novella from the pen of the late Nebula-award winning, master storyteller Kage Baker, author of the beloved Company series, offers a rousing and poignant exploration of work and family. Where the Golden Apples Grow creates a futuristic backdrop impossible not to believe in.

Kage Baker's death in 2010 silenced one of the most distinctive, consistently engaging voices in contemporary fiction. A late starter, Baker published her first short stories in 1997, at the age of forty-five. From then until the end of her life, she wrote prolifically and well, leaving an astonishing body of work behind. The Best of Kage Baker is a treasure trove that gathers together twenty stories and novellas, eleven of which have never been collected anywhere. The volume is bookended by a pair of tales from her best known and best loved creation: The Company, with its vivid cast of time traveling immortals. In 'Noble Mold,' Mendoza the botanist and Joseph, the ancient 'facilitator,' find themselves in 19th century California, where a straightforward acquisition grows unexpectedly complex, requiring, in the end, a carefully engineered 'miracle.' In 'The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park,' an autistic Company operative named Ezra encounters a lost soul named Kristy Ann, and finds a way to give her back the world that she has lost. Among the volume's many other highlights are a pair of brilliant Company novellas: the Hugo Award-nominated 'Son, Observe the Time' and 'Welcome to Olympos, Mr. Hearst,' a tour de force set in the Hollywood of the 1930s and featuring an encounter with legendary newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. There is also a generous assortment of equally brilliant standalone tales, including 'Calamari Curls,' the account of a faded resort town that takes a surprising turn into Lovecraftian terrain, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated 'Caverns of Mystery,' in which ancient stories play themselves out repeatedly, shaping and altering the world around them. These are only a few of the pleasures waiting within this book. The Best of Kage Baker is exactly what the title proclaims: the best short work of a gifted and irreplaceable writer. Anyone with an interest in first-rate imaginative fiction—anyone with an interest in lovingly crafted fiction of any kind—needs to read this book.

Mars! The Red Planet! For generations, people have wondered what it would be like to travel to and live there. That curiosity has inspired some of the most durable science fiction, including Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and the work of Isaac Asimov. Now the award-winning anthologist Jonathan Strahan has brought together thirteen original stories to explore the possibilities. After reading Life on Mars, readers will never look at the fourth planet from the sun the same way again.